Mississippi twins arrested for videoing police from their balcony

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Raw Story

Mississippi twins arrested for videoing police from their balcony
By Muriel Kane
Friday, May 4, 2012 22:38 EDT

As nineteen year old Shanell Madison of Pearl, Mississippi tells it, she and her twin brother Terrell were sitting peacefully on the balcony of their apartment on Tuesday when they heard shots from a police shootout below. Then Terrell began recording the scene with his cellphone, and that brought the police bursting into the apartment to arrest both of them.

“The police came up here after they took his phone,” Shanell told WLBT News. “They slammed him down and arrested him, and I’m like ‘Why are y’all arresting him’, and then they grabbed me and slammed me also and arrested me.”

The twins’ mother, Karen Madison, believes the police became upset because she moved her truck when she saw them using it as a shield during the shootout. She says that none of the officers on the scene would tell her why her children had been arrested and taken to jail.

“Lieutenant comes down tells me ‘Yeah I have your kids here. They’re safe, but they’re gonna be here until I say they can be released’,” Madison recalled.


Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/04/mississippi-twins-arrested-for-videoing-police-from-their-balcony/

[1620rock]

1. Fucking cops! Police state yet?

[bluedigger]

2. Something is not right here.

"The twins’ mother, Karen Madison, believes the police became upset because she moved her truck when she saw them using it as a shield during the shootout."

Is she a Superhero or something?

Maybe she was in it already when the shootout began?

[AnotherMcIntosh]

3. Maybe she is just a truck owner who didn't want unnecessary holes in her truck.

[bluedigger]

7. Some people really do love their trucks.

Me, I'd let my Jeep take the hit before exposing myself to crossfire to save it, but maybe I'm just a wuss.

[octothorpe]

37. Exactly...

I don't love my vehicles enough to risk my life or the lives of others to save it. I'd be ashamed of myself if I ever got to the point to do that. Although, I wonder what would happen if someone's vehicle was severely damaged in a situation like this. Would the city/county/whatever pay for the damages incurred, or would it be totally up the person's insurance to cover it? Would most insurances cover that?

[kristopher]

23. The gunfire exchange was inside an apartment building

If you are predisposed to mistrusting the police (I am) this whole thing stinks.

The police version is that 5 heavily armed policed "entered an apartment they thought was empty to serve a warrant and found the suspect, Carnell Gaines Jr., 30, hiding in a shower stall. Gaines opened fire, killing Walter. Fellow investigators Dave McCarley and Shaun Terwilliger, also were wounded with McCarley suffering gunshot wounds to the hand and leg."

We also know that there were more domestic soldiers outside positioned behind the truck.

Why all of that for an empty apartment?

Who in the hell serves a warrant at an empty apartment?

The kids apparently had a view into the apartment where the event happened "the balcony from which Terrell and Shanell Madison told television reporters they were filming faces the apartment where the bullet holes are evident."

It is very easy to construct a hypothetical where the police are the bad guys here; very, very bad guys. I hope that isn't the case.

Quotes from this article: http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20120504/NEWS/205040346/Pearl-police-stand-by-arrests-two-teens

[bluedigger]

28. Most of the story makes sense, sort of.

The police had their blood up and felt like the mother was aiding the suspect by moving the vehicle. (That is the part I find unbelievable - that woman was insane to do that!) Everything else followed from that. I'm not excusing the police, at all, but I understand how it all happened, I guess. Now instead of witnesses, they have hostile witnesses.

I'd drop the charges against the kids, and charge the mom with obstruction of justice.

[boppers]

41. "Who in the hell serves a warrant at an empty apartment?"

People serving a search warrant for property from a presumably abandoned/squatted/etc. property.

[NickB79]

38. If they're taking cover behind her vehicle, and she puts it in motion

She could have theoretically run over or hit one of the officers. That alone would have pissed the cops off to no end if they're already pumped on adrenaline from a shoot-out.

But if that's the case, why arrest the kids rather than the mom?

[dballance]

4. I'm Not an Attorney but doesn't that sound like false arrest?

I'd be contacting the police commissioner and the DA.

[dmr]

6. Doesn't sound like they had cause to enter their home either.

My guess is one of them opened the door, & then they rammed their way through.

Before anyone jumps all over me, I said it was my guess. Speculation is allowed.

[harmonicon]

9. It sounds like kidnapping to me.

What else would this statement mean? ‘Yeah I have your kids here. They’re safe, but they’re gonna be here until I say they can be released’ That says nothing about charging them or prosecuting them. To me it sounds like kidnapping by government forces.

[DallasNE]

5. Calling Rev. Al Sharpton

This case needs national attention so let Sharpton's people get involved. Pearl, Mississippi has a long history of unbelievable "justice" involving African-Americans.

[countryjake]

8. I wonder, who were those cops shooting it out with?

What gives them the right to keep the phone card and I wonder what might be on the video that they had to arrest two kids to retrieve it?

Disorderly conduct for holding up a cell phone? Slamming two young people to the floor, just for hanging out peacefully on their own balcony?

Pearl, Mississippi sounds like such a lovely place!

The questions that arise from this story are simply mind-boggling!

[IndyJones]

10. This story just begs to ask so many questions. Mainly, what were the cops trying so hard to hide?

And was it legal for them to enter that home and arrest those two. Very strange story I hope we hear the conclusion to soon.

[Festivito]

11. She moves her car during a shoot-out? Yikes.

The police are going to need a really good story, or it looks like:
abuse of authority,
aggravated assault,
kidnapping,
obstructing justice,
and possibly more.

[Uben]

12. Above the law

Any police officer who thinks they are above the law needs to be dismissed permanently and banned from any type of law enforcement for life. I don't know why the profession draws a bunch of kook pussies who want to carry a gun and harass people, but it does. I come from a family of law enforcement officers. Local cops, sheriff's deputies, state troopers, and even a federal deputy marshall. All but one are good cops, but one fits the description I gave above. He's the one that told me he would drive around the block a few times before arriving at a domestic violence call to give the perps time to cool down. Yeah, what happens if that perp kills someone and you could have prevented it if you had gotten there sooner? That's life, he said. Sounds like a real winner, huh?

[Fastcars]

13. Great Idea, But....

That would lead to a MASSIVE shortage of cops.

[Uben]

18. Isn't that the truth!

But, that might not be such a bad idea either. Of course, the donut industry would go belly up and the firearms industry would take a big hit, as well. I believe everyone has a right to own a firearm responsibly, but no one needs an arsenal. That said, I have fifteen guns, everyone except for a .22 pistol were inherited. I should sell them since they are going for good money right now, but that would just put them in the hands of someone that might not be as responsible as I am. Every one is unloaded and under lock and key.
Half of them are antiques.

[quakerboy]

31. Why?

They are above the law. That has become quite clear in case after court case. In the rare times any complaints make it that far.

I believe many, even most cops and law enforcement are well meaning people. The kind of people that others would meet and say "this is a good cop". But I have come to believe that many, even most are not really good cops. Because while they may be decent folk otherwise, they cover for the not minuscule number of really bad apples in the group. To further the analogy,the bad apples really do spoil the whole barrel. They all become bad apples. Is there a single good apple left in Oakland or ny or any number of other cities? If there is why have they not stepped forward to protect the public?

[allan01]

14. re: Mississippi twins arrested for videoing police from their balcony

hmm. i hope there is a massive lawsuit on this one

[immoderate]

15. And I hope they tax some rich people to pay it!

Of which I'm not.

--imm

[christx30]

30. This kind of stuff

isn't going to stop until individual cops are held personally responsible. Take their pensions, and the contents of their personal bank account, and not taxpayer money.

[lynne]

16. There's a little more to this story -

- according to a local news source. Bizarre all way around.

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20120504/NEWS/205040346/Pearl-police-stand-by-arrests-two-teens

[nolabear]

17. I can't believe this place sometimes. Two officers were killed and all I hear is "they PUSHED them!

I suppose I am upset in part because I have relatives in law enforcement near Pearl, MS where this happened and have been following the story.

I say this with absolute understanding that the police do egregious things sometimes, but my understanding fromwhat I have been told is that they found themselves in a shooting match in public, where their job becomes not only to deal with the armed and shooting perpetrator but the public who might be in harm's way. Having a couple of kids PUT themselves in harm's way so that the police's job is now to not only deal with the man but try not to get killed while protecting them can result in all kinds of horrors. The police may have been reacting in part out of anger but who on EARTH goes out to move a truck in the middle of a shootout? Now SHE is in danger, dividing the police's attention yet again. Doing what the citizens did is madness.

Teenagers will scream bloody murder about being hauled down. I expect that. There's anger all around. I get that.

But people, two police officers are DEAD and one badly wounded. A tiny little town is in shock because their own are dead. There are so many terrible things about this I can't count them. But saving your ire for the police is absurd.

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. If the mother did something wrong, then they should have arrested her

If, that is, there is a law against what she did. But you can't take out your frustration with the mother on her children.

The fact that a police officer (the story seems to say one, with 2 wounded) was killed is actually irrelevant to their actions with the mother or children.

Townsend said after that, police went to the apartment to ask for the cellphone video as evidence, since police had seen the twins filming during the firefight. Shanell Madison refused to get off her phone when police asked her to, according to WAPT-Channel 16.

That's when "tempers flared on their part," Townsend said.

"They didn't want their phones taken, and I don't blame them for that, but that's still no excuse to pull away from police that are trying to take you into custody," he said. "And it's still no excuse to try to intervene when someone else is being taken into custody."

Terrell Madison admitted to WAPT that he may have talked back when an officer "grabbed" him. He also said he possibly pulled away from police at some point. "Maybe the only thing I did was snatch back because that's the natural reaction," he said.

This was in their home. The police seem to have tried to take them into custody without a reason, and, then when they pull away from that, called it 'disorderly conduct' so that then then had an excuse to arrest them.

[sofa king]

19. Someone's gonna get rich off of this killer app:

A direct-to-the-Internet broadcast of whatever your cell phone is observing, saved to the cloud across multiple servers, shareable, ratable, replayable, and anonymous.

Since the video is not actually being saved to the phone, one might be able to argue that it isn't "recording" the police at all; it is merely broadcasting the information that law enforcement regularly intercepts and uses without owners' consent, anyway (as well as all sorts of other creepy entities--seriously, read some of those EULAs you signed, or notice how Flash changes its terms of service every month and reactivates your laptop camera--your shit is already p0wn3d by more three-letter acronyms than you can find in eating a bowl of Alpha-bits with a sugar spoon). Others out there will be the ones recording and viewing it, second hand, and it should be sharable as public domain video.

One could even set it to activate without an overt command, by sensing when the phone is pulling over on the side of a road, or if it is being sniffed by police data-miners.

Uh, as long as all of the above is perfectly legal in all fifty states and everywhere else including my dog's rectum. Otherwise, it is a fanciful dalliance with no application to the real world.

[tkmorris]

22. I have an app that can do that

Actually it's two apps, one which can take pictures or video without anyone knowing it is doing so (the phone appears to be off) and another that uploads any video/pictures directly to a server in real time. They work together just fine, I've tested it.

I got these apps in anticipation of just this type of scenario, but I am troubled by their existence. Their is a lot of potential for this sort of thing to be misused.

[santamargarita]

20. Every time I hear Mississippi I think of some lardass Sheriff saying "y’all in a heap of trouble boy!

[vkkv]

21. Hold ON A Second. Not a complete story here.

Police are engaged in a shootout with gun owners using guns illegally. We MUST assume in the line of duty to protect the public. Then a lady gets involved IN THE CRIME by moving her truck while the police are using for COVER?

Come on people. Most COPS are on the side of the public in general. If I was a cop, I'd be pissed too, more likely arrresting the truck owner than her kids. Not a complete story here.

Yes, I'm fully LEFT of center.

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. No, she did not 'get involved in the crime'

She tried to protect her property. Whether or not that was a community-spirited thing to do, it's her basic right.

And the video in the OP shows several cars right there. They did have alternative places to hide.

[bluedigger]

29. I suppose they should have gone door to door and asked for permission to use the cars.

It was a firefight. What part of that do you not get?

[muriel_volestrangler]

34. And it was her vehicle. What part of that do you not get?

I'm not saying they shouldn't have hid behind it. I'll agree that a good, thinking person would have said "it's only a truck - move it now and it'll increase their danger". But the 'Castle Doctrine', which Mississippi has, allows people to put such a high priority on defending their property that I can't see why the police are at all surprised that she did what she did. And I note that they didn't arrest her, even after the incident, which points to her not doing anything illegal.

They did, however, arrest her children, for, apparently, not wanting to get pulled around inside their own home.

[sulphurdunn]

24. Two men were killed

Last edited Sat May 5, 2012, 09:10 PM - Edit history (1)

and two more wounded in that shoot out. One of the dead and two of the wounded were cops. Bullets were apparently flying everywhere. Two idiots remained standing on a balcony taking pictures after they were told to take cover and a third moved a truck with total disregard for the lives of the cops, leaving them in the line of fire, anyone of whom may also have been killed or wounded. Then the first two idiots, who had recorded scenes from this fatal shoot-out, refuse to relinquish that evidence. Sorry, as much as I hate to say it, I'm leaning toward the cops on this one.

[davidthegnome]

32. I'm inclined to agree

If I were to see a shoot out, my first thought would not be to take pictures or record the damn thing. It would be to take cover, get the hell out of the way. If a couple of cops were using my vehicle for cover... and I moved the vehicle, I'd be exposing them to enemy fire and removing their cover. Frankly, I do not think that that is something any reasonably decent person would do.

Without further knowledge of what actually went down there, I can't say for certain. From what I gather of the article though, it seems that this woman did deliberately place the lives of police officers at risk. I'm sorry, but a human life is worth a hell of a lot more than some idiot's car. Whether you like cops or not is quite beside the point.

[Liberal_in_LA]

40. not me. They are just running around afterwords looking for somewhere to place their anger.

[sarcasmo]

25. Prison society, 1 in 100 in jail. USA! USA!

[Can I Come Home]

33. Can't let Our Finest be seen DOING THEIR JOBS, now can we?

[Grins]

35. CUE LEE GREENWOOD!!!!! (n/m)

[octothorpe]

36. She got in the middle of the firefight to move her truck?

Either she puts waaaay too much value on material things, or she was attempting to help the people in the shootout with the police... Although, that doesn't really give the police any reason to arrest the lady's children. If they can prove there was some malice intent on the mother's part, then arrest her...

[Liberal_in_LA]

39. punishing mom for moving her truck - they admit it here:

"I'm sure she didn't want her truck shot up, but officers needed cover. I won't kid you, that didn't sit well," Townsend said. "The statement that was made to us out there during all that was, 'You don't pay the bills here.'

"Well, I'm not worried about who pays the bills where. It's bad enough that you moved your truck when we needed it for cover, and we were using it for cover. It's a disheartening sight in an intense firefight to see your cover backing up and leaving you."


http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20120504/NEWS/205040346/Pearl-police-stand-by-arrests-two-teens

[davidthegnome]

42. I think Townsend has a point

I don't know whether what the woman did is actually a crime. At the very least though, it placed the lives of police officers in more danger than they were already in. Now I've never been in a shoot out, but if I was taking cover behind a truck and someone moved it? I'd be fortunate indeed if I didn't get shot, possibly even killed as a result. If I survived the experience, yes I'd be angry and I'd have every right to be. A truck can be replaced or repaired, a human life, not so much.

If I saw some cops using my vehicle for cover, the last thing in my mind would be "Oh no, my poor car, this is gonna cost a fortune in repair bills!" What the woman did strikes me as nothing short of despicable. As for the twins being taken to give witness testimony.. isn't that SOP in such a case? Given the likelihood of evidence contained on their cell phones it's hardly a surprise that they were taken - they have now been returned as will the memory cards once evidence (if there) is removed. Again, this is SOP.

This does not strike me as a case of police being on a power trip or acting above the law or even acting inappropriately. Should the mom be punished? I would say yes, in the event that she can be held legally responsible for deliberately placing the lives of others at risk. If not, perhaps we need a new law that protects police officers during a shoot out. It could have been my brother in law standing behind that truck, if he'd been shot and/or killed as a result of that woman's cold blooded act, I would hope that there was some sort of legal action taken against her as a result.

I fail to understand the outrage against the police here.

[Roland99]

43. you "fail to understand the outrage against the police here"?? AYSM???

they arrested two kids (albeit, they're 19 but...) who had absolutely NOTHING to do with what was going on. All they were doing was sitting on a balcony filming what was going on.

That's a crime???

I think NOT!

[davidthegnome]

45. Evidence of a crime

I wasn't there to see what took place during the arrest of the teenagers, I don't think it's available on video. The police had a valid reason to question the two kids. Probably not to arrest them - but the charge is disorderly conduct, so I'd imagine that the teens (one or both) reacted to questioning in a threatening manner. Maybe not. Either way, emotions were flying, tensions were high, the kids were probably scared, but so were the cops.

What we can say for certain is that the Mother deliberately moved a vehicle that was being used for cover, by police officers, during a shoot out. That is at least a foolish and indecent action if not one I would consider suspicious. Look at it this way - you're a cop in the line of fire, a woman removes your cover, placing your life at risk, you then notice that her twins are recording the whole damn thing from a balcony. There really isn't any way to be certain that there wasn't a connection between the family and the shooters, nor to know why the scene was being recorded and what was being done with the recordings. How could they know whether or not the kids had anything to do with what was going on?

I think the arrest is somewhat over the top, but these aren't normal circumstances. Under normal circumstances, the kids would have been questioned, possibly with a lawyer present - but the evidence could still very well have been seized. Also... doesn't it strike you as just a bit odd that some kids are up on a balcony recording a shoot out between police and some unknown criminals? My first thought would be to get the hell out of the way...

This isn't a case of some kid getting beaten up by cops for no reason, nor even of unlawful search or seizure. If misconduct on the part of the police in question can be proven, then hell, I'll scream for their badges myself. As far as I can tell though, all we have is speculation either way.

[Liberal_in_LA]

44. mom moved the truck. Teens were arrested. Collective punishment?