Today, January 30th 2019, April Malone and Celitria Watson made an appearance in Federal court in Magistrate Judge Tu M Pham.
As we saw in our previous post, Ms Malone and Ms Watson are the falsely-arrested women who faced manufactured wiretap data, where MPD Organized Crime Unit detectives used a Stingray device to alter texts between Ms Watson and her incarcerated brother, Kendrick Watson. She had an automated cloud backup of all her phone activity and was able to produce the original backup of her texts to prove the police alteration of the evidence. Their cases were dismissed and expunged, but Kendrick Watson was convicted on evidence from those same cops.
Today’s hearing was a scheduling conference where the due dates for the various activities leading up to a December 2019 jury trial. From the docket (PDF) “Pro-Se Plaintiffs April Malone and Celitria Watson present. John M. Jones and Emmett L. Whitwell appearing for defendant Shelby County. Darius Walker, Jr. appearing for the City of Memphis. Betsy McKinney making a limited appearance on behalf of defendants Thurmond Richardson, Jonathan Overly and William Acred. The parties submitted a proposed scheduling order. The court discussed the dates and deadlines with the parties. Plaintiffs made an oral motion to waive the mediator fees pursuant to the Mediation Plan for pro se civil cases with parties granted IFP status. The court granted plaintiffs oral motion and waived the fees. Mediator will be selected by the court.
A motion or several motions for dismissal are expected from the defendants.
Here is the scheduling order that Judge Pham made today. Disclosures will be done in the next two weeks, where the plaintiffs have to provide copies of the documentation they have and a list of damages and time off work. The defendants also have to produce their documents and details of any expert witnesses. The next step will be the appointment of a mediator.
Any attorney who would like to jump in here would be most welcome. Ms Watson and Ms Malone need to know what will happen in the mediation.
Also in court today, Mr Earley Story, who also has a pro-se Federal civil rights case coming up in February. We will be following Mr Story’s very interesting case here on MemphisTruth.com.
Memphis, TN. In the wake of the ACLU’s civil rights victory over the City and MPD, Celitria Watson and April Malone are bringing a lawsuit against the City, County and six officials for evidence tampering and prosecutorial misconduct.
In our most recent post, we revealed the extent of MPD’s Authorization of Agency (AoA) program, inspired by Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission (MSCCC).
We did some preliminary analysis of the data and there are updated spreadsheets (CSV, ODS, XLSX). The update includes some address corrections and the addition of a business category field.
Analysis of AoAs by race
We saw the racial disparity in the initial AoA post. The profiling nature of the scheme, with seven times (84.9% vs 12.3%) the number of Black versus white victims of AoA is confirmed.
Analysis of AoAs by year
We broke down AoAs by the year the initial AoA was signed. 2018 is low because only half a year of data was collected. Years 211 through 2016 are incomplete because we asked in our FOIA for all AoAs between December 1st 216 and July 9th 2018. All precincts but one simply sent all their AoA data rather than selecting the data range we asked for. In addition, we noted many AoAs which were signed on a given date and had additional lines added over the same signature and date later. We have not quantified this factor as of yet but we think it will skew a couple of percent of the dates earlier.
AoAs by year adjusted for undercount in 2016 and earlier, and for the 2018 half year
We adjusted the yearly graph by doubling up the 2018 number to estimate a full year, and we added 15% to 2016 and earlier to account for the number of AoAs missing in our sample.
The graphs look similar. From small beginnings in 2011, the scheme grew to about 240 in 2014, then took a big jump to 665 in 2016 and plateaued out to around 600 each in 2017-2018.
We need to look for the impetus behind the 2014 and 2016 bumps. Most likely, some form of marketing or promotional assets were assigned to the program to cause these bumps. We’ll also submit another ORR to obtain the missing data.
We created a new field in the spreadsheet for business category and ran this report. The biggest category is apartment, which also includes mobile home parks, condos, retirement communities and townhouses.
The dominance of this sector may be the result of “Operation Safeway” which had a focus on apartment managers. The majority of these had a just a few AoAs, but complexes like Greenbrier with 48 AoAs and a dozen or so with double digits stand out. Clearly a number of apartment managements embraced the scheme enthusiastically.
The retail sector is largely a handful of AoAs in each store. All branches of chain stores are included. Three chains of dollar stores (Family Dollar, Dollar General, and Dollar Tree) had a total of 38 AoAs, which probably reflects the dollar stores’ well known skimping on security staff. Other chains with large numbers includes Walgreens with 24 and Kroger with 17. Otherwise, few retailers had more than three or four per location.
We think that, like with the apartment sector, that the heavy retail users had an internal policy to use AoA while the light users were probably recruited by police.
The food sector includes all vendors of prepared food and alcohol by the drink. The chains with most branches are the biggest offenders, and CiCi’s Pizza in Poplar Plaza’s 17 AoAs were associated with a well-publicized disturbance at the venue. We know that Operation Safeway targeted food establishments in certain areas, but we think that most of the rest may have been instigated by MPD, including the CiCi’s incident.
The hotel/motel sector includes hotels, motels and boarding houses, has a few stand-outs, probably related to prostitution. The manufacturing sector, though small, is dominated by Smith and Nephew who initiated 85 of the 100 AoAs. This is an anomaly which probably reflects a decision in management to use MPD as part of its security apparatus.
The gas sector looks very much like retail, and when you eliminate the effect of supplier chains like Shell or Exxon, not much stands out.
Public facilities include the downtown MATA terminus, with 24 AoAs and three at the Zoo. We talked about the Zoo political blacklist in the original AoA post. We dispute the legality of public entities barring members of the public.
Churches banned 37 people. It sounds unchristian to us to put people in the system. Even worse, schools had 35 AoAs, and we cannot envision a world where young people can be legally barred from education, or even where a school would involve the police in its disciplinary process.
Summary
We see some high-frequency users of AoA. These AoAs are probably due to business policy and may have been influenced by Operation Safeway in some way. The vast majority of AoAs have the potential of being instigated by police, including a handful where we know the case history.
We will follow up with additional analysis, including enriching the data and sampling some case histories to determine the marketing initiatives that shape the AoA usage curves.
We’ve been hearing about MPD’s Authorization of Agency (AoA) process. It surfaced in the media during the A-list controversy, where the actual blacklist was on form AA 0306, the Authorization of Agency form. We also wrote about a couple of Park Protectors who featured on AoAs at the Zoo.
What is Authorization of Agency (AoA)
Authorization of Agency is generally accepted term in real estate law, where it allows an agent to sign property documents in lieu of a principal.
Some police agencies have the concept of authorization of agency, the San Diego PD being an example. In the case of all police agencies we could find, the authorization of agency is a blanket measure against all trespassers, so it’s similar to posting your property.
MPD’s AoA is different. It specified the property, but also has one or more individuals who are barred from the property. This is unique to MPD’s version of AoA.
Normally, trespass does not occur, in the case of property that is not posted, until an accused person has been informed that she is trespassing, and is given time to leave the property.
The legal theory behind the AoA is that the persons listed has been informed that they will be trespassing without further notice if she enters the property again. It supposedly authorizes the police to act as an agent of the landlord in giving notice.
AoA is also promoted by Shelby Co. DA Amy Weirich as part of Operation Safeway. Anecdotally, we hear that it is used against the homeless, by apartment complexes and by businesses who seek to prevent “undesirables” on their premises. The data tends to confirm this.
Our Open Records Request.
We submitted an open records request for all AoAs filed since December 1st 2016, and received about 200 files containing over 1800 PDF forms, many of them older than December 2016. Most precincts sent all their AoAs. We think we have over 90% of AoAs.
As can be seen from the chart, there were 1697 unique AoAs in the data, and race was identified in all but 75. 84.9% of listed persons were Black and 12.3% white, with a couple of percent Latinx and a few Asians. African Americans are over-represented by a factor of 350% compared with the demographics. There are seven times the number of Black people over whites.
The original map can be seen on Google Docs.
Click the “Map” tab to view the interactive map, and the “Rows” tab shows the data, with the source field clickable to go to the source PDF.
The collated data table is available on Google Docs, as a comma-separated CSV file, Excel XLSX and OpenOffice ODS files. These files also contain the name of the barred person, a clickable link to the source .PDF and the page number to search within this PDF. (Updated 9/11/2017: updated spreadsheet with corrections and added business category field; CSVXLSXODS.)
The map shows a large concentration stretching through downtown, Midtown, Orange Mound, Parkway Village and Hickory hill, with some outliers in Raleigh and Frayser. Most of these places are where the races mingle as in downtown and midtown, or in transitional areas where demographics are changing. But the vast majority of AoA listees are African American.
How AoA is supposed to work.
MPD officer Dan Adams at the Zoo
The forms are filled in by hand by the property manager and are to be witnessed by a police officer. They are maintained in the original form via scanning to .pdf. They are apparently kept in hard copy folders by ward which are carried in police cars. Many of the forms have a three digit ward number written near the top of the form. The data are accessed by manually searching through the forms in the book.
As manual, hand-written forms, there are no controls on handwriting, spelling or general accuracy. Many entries are hard to read, either because the original script is undecipherable or because the documents have been scanned, faxed or copied many times.
Many of the forms have additional data, such as sex, weight, height, and marginal notes with drivers license numbers or scanned licenses, phone numbers, addresses, behavioral notes, details of alleged offenses, car tags or descriptions. DL numbers, Social Security numbers and photos are redacted. Access the original documents to see additional data.
Although some property managers keep the forms on hand and initiate the application, the suggestion to file often comes from a police officer.
Problems with AoA administration.
The forms state that the complainant has notified the subject that they are not permitted on the property, but we have many instances where the subjects were not duly notified, and there is no checking or control on
Fergus Nolan and Maureen Spain are on an AoA at the Zoo from 31/5/2016 but were not notified, see example.
Hunter Demster was placed on an AoA on 9/28/2017 and not notified.
Up to 12 protesters at the Mayor’s house die-in from 12/19/2016 were placed on an AoA, and an additional 40+ people who were not at the die-in were also placed on the “A-list” AoA, but only Keedran Franklin was notified, and not by Mayor Strickland, the complainant, but by MPD plainclothes police.
Lack of notification of being on an AoA can expose the subject to arbitrary arrest for trespassing while unknowingly being listed on the property.
The “protection” afforded a property owner by AoA is similar to an order of protection, in that it prevents an subject from approaching a complainant while on her property, but AoA does not embody the same opportunity to legally challenge the listing. AoA may be viewed as an attempt to bypass the safeguards embodied in the Order of Protection process.
The AoA process is not documented in MPD’s P&P manual, and has no maintenance or purge process. Conditions attached to the AoA listing, such as limited duration of the listing, cannot be enforced. We have examples of AoAs which were supposed to have limited one-year duration still being on file after many years. The AoA my still be in effect after the property is transferred to another owner.
The forms are supposed to be signed by the complainant and witnessed by an MPD member. We found numerous instances of missing signatures of both types, and signatures that were “witnessed” on a different date to the original signature.
We also found numerous instances where a duly signed and witnessed AOA form had additional names added over the original signature, which is a falsification of official records, as the purported signature and witness do not apply to the subsequent changes. We have instances where both the original form and the updated version are on file, and also instances where later names were added in a different hand to the original list. Forms should have unused subject lines crossed out to prevent subsequent additions.
Our example.
From personal experience, this example illustrates several of the problems with AoAs. On 5/31/2016, the day after their arrest at a Greensward protest, this AoA (PDF, see page 7) was created for Maureen Spain and Fergus Nolan, without notification. Their drivers license numbers were provided to the Zoo by MPD for this purpose, in violation of open records laws, which requires DL numbers to be redacted before sharing with members of the public.
Fergus Nolan unknowingly visited the Zoo on at least three different occasions in 2017. On one of these visits, he was with Hunter Demster, when both were asked to leave. Subsequently, on the 28th, an AoA was created for Hunter Demster, who was not notified.
During the incident described in our February blog, the police were seen working on some papers. Once again, for at least the fourth time, they failed to find the existing AoA for Fergus. The police added him into the existing AoA for Hunter. The two versions are shown above, where the second line was added in a different hand.
This illustrates what we think are common problems with AoAs. They are frequently altered to add more names, making the witness signature fraudulent. Subjects are often not informed of their inclusion on an AoA, making them subject to arrest if they re-enter the listed property unawares. The system is ineffective. Fergus Nolan’s 5/31/2016 AoA was not found on four separate occasions. In addition, the police often add confidential information to the AoA including driver’s license, social security number and photos, which are required to be redacted before sharing with members of the public, and the complainant gets to see this information.
Legal Basis
I’m not a lawyer. AoA form AA 0705 is another version of the form, and some are present in our document cache. It cites TCA 39-3-1201, which was repealed, as the authorizing statute. These AoA forms are still active.
TCA 39-14-405 is the successor statute to the repealed trespass measure and it does not mention AoA or describe its mechanism. We have consulted attorneys who believe that the process is not legal, but there has not been a legal challenge to date.
Due Process Issues.
As there is no formal record keeping system for AoAs, and as there are no regulations in the P&P manual, the records are chaotic.
There is no judicial oversight, means of correcting, changing data, purging outdated records, or appeal process.
We saw AoAs as old as 2011, and children as young as eleven listed, with no mechanism for parental involvement.
We saw one situation where the same policeman hawked the same AoA against and individual to four different businesses in an area, suggesting that individual police have a lot of latitude in applying this sanction.
The quality of the system, in terms of data accuracy, legibility, efficient access and data maintenance procedures is rock bottom.
We are aware of several AoAs which have been removed fro the database. These include the original AoA signed in January 2017 for the December 19th die-in, which formed the basis of the A-list. Also missing is a December 31st for Malco theater which had the names of Keedran Franklin and other CCC members who gave out free theater tickets. The deletions we know about occurred after political pressure was applied.
Summary
AoA is racist in implementation, has no legal basis, has no checks and balances, is unwieldy, capricious and ineffective, violates due process and has been used as a weapon by MPD officers against the weakest members of our community.
It is questionable if a police force can act as the agent of property owners, in violation of the State trespass law, without compromising their oath to uphold the law.
This week has been a game changer. Memphis history will forever be divided into the pre-ACLU era and the post-ACLU era. MPD in particular is in crisis, and, because of role of public safety in our local elections, the crisis extends into the political sphere.
Pau Garner, Spencer Kaaz, Al Lewis, Elaine Blanchard, Earle Fisher, Keedran “TNT” Franklin at the Federal courthouse, 8/20/2018.
The trial itself.
We saw a steady stream of MPD brass take the stand and be defensive. The City strategy has been to try to make the police look reasonable, and to paint the activists as crazy fools. This strategy plain failed, as Paul Garner, Elaine Blanchard, Earle Fisher and Keedran Franklin presented well on the stand. It is notable that the City did not send Jim Strickland or any of the”public safety” advocates to defend their police buddies.
The defense cut their losses on Thursday and pulled the plug on trying to discredit more activists or putting more police on the stand. Essentially, they accepted defeat after a very poor display of legal skills.
MPD’s Reaction
MPD is not a monolith. It has leaders jockeying for position as the next director, a large number of disaffected members who are still disgruntled over pensions and benefits, a degenerate and poorly led MPA and a sizeable contingent of out and out racists who are chafing at being led by an African American director.
We can expect instability at MPD. At this point I see little benefit in stirring the pot at MPD. We’ve stirred. Stirring done.
At this point we need to be concerned that the police will revert to form and lash out at civilians and activists. We suggest extreme care in interactions with police as we await the verdict from the trial. We have no need to provoke further reactions from MPD. We’ve already unleashed the nuclear option.
Political Reaction
Strickland’s administration has not been watching the backs of their police. He has been declining to comment on the sub-judice proceedings. We expect this to continue.
In the meantime, the hitherto solid eight or nine vote pro-police Council block is already showing signs of fragmenting. Joe Brown and Edmund Ford are term limited and won’t need to expend political capital on defending the police.
Berlin Boyd is up for re-election. He has been at odds with the Kemp Conrad knee-jerk brand of police support, voting against Conrad in the August 2016 marijuana ordinance. Boyd knows that he needs to put some distance between himself and the law and order lobby. He’s been reaching out to certain activists with some truly strange proposals.
Jamita Swearengen, as the new chairman of the Public Safety Committee, has been conventionally pro-police, generally following the MPD’s COP community policing line. She made a speech at CLERB extolling Blue Crush and the deployment of 490 new spycams, which City Council approved a budget of $1.5M for on July 10th.
Patrice Robinson has not been saying a lot about policing.
Of the white Council members, all part of the Caissa group, the more extreme police fans like Kemp Conrad and Reid Hedgepeth, with Bill Morrison, are term limited. We might see some posturing from them. Ford Canale remains a cypher, although he rang the Public Safety bell in his August election campaign, apparently with less effect than his predecessor.
We don’t see much incentive for Council members to expend political capital on defending police prerogatives. In fact, we think some of the previous pro-police coalition, especially Berlin Boyd, are already maneuvering to create some advantage for themselves.
Policy Changes
Activists have ling sought a strengthening of CLERB powers. CLERB needs subpoena power, and the ability to make binding recommendations for disciplinary actions and policy and procedure changes. Look to Memphis United, fresh from Paul Garner’s performance on the witness stand, to be making proposals. In addition, it appears that the administration has successfully sabotaged the ability of CLERB to post documents on its own website and on the City archive site.
It’s hard not to see the canny Garner taking advantage of MPD’s predicament.
Police Director
Mike Rallings, as the officer who presided over the decline in MPD political interference, and because of his unconvincing defense of his policies on the stand, is damaged goods. He has been left dangling by his political masters. There is no question that he can survive past the election of the next mayor in 2019. He either takes control of his fate and resigns, or the political upheaval that now starts will result in his firing.
Rallings has been fully vested in his MPD pension plan for about a year.
It seems very clear that a new director can’t come from the culturally compromised MPD. The next Police Director must be chosen on the basis of a proven record of community policing. The internal candidates who have been preened as Ralling’s successor are infected with the racial disease that infects the force and will be rejected.
Our suggestions for police director include Anne Kirkpatrick, Oakland CA police chief. She applied for the job in 2016. Another is John S Thompson, Camden NJ police chief.
The 2019 City elections
The current mayor and most of City Council were elected in 2015 with dog-whistle campaigns, evoking public safety with racial coding to get elected. The dog whistle was already losing its effectiveness. J Ford Canale blew the dog whistle in the Super 9-2 election and his vote was down 25% on Philip Spinosa’s 2015 performance. David Lenoir used the dog whistle in the County Mayor election and was convincingly defeated by Lee Harris.
Incumbents will be forced to run on other issues. Insurgent candidates will focus on poverty, economics and policing, where incumbents have a dreadful record. Strickland has not been brilliant at the basics. The Caissa Seven have been exposed as the next best thing to a political conspiracy.
Expect a lot of surprises as incumbents and challengers jockey for position and make economic arguments. Expect opponents to rally around retaining IRV in the December referenda, and issues like EDGE, economic development, energy policy, CLERB, policing and poverty to be well aired in the election runup.
Summary
Policing has been the lynch-pin of Memphis politics, especially in the last election cycle. The pin has been pulled from this grenade.
People need to be very careful out in the streets.
In the halls of power, expect surprises. 2019 will be fought and won on real policies, not the stalking horses of yore.
Memphis City and the ACLU have, in the last week, released a huge trove of documents relating to the A-list lawsuit.
The UK-based The Guardian today covered the story, as has Esquire magazine and Citylab. Our local crowdsourcers have only begun to dig in the paperwork, and we are certain that the material will fuel our researches for years to come, but a few vital facts have emerged.
Geofeedia replacement social media “collator” NC4.
Probably one of the most significant finding to date is the identification of the Geofeedia replacement. The ACLU had been after this product as the social media spy tool of choice until the social media powerhouses cut off its data feed in October 2016. The new replacement is NC4, which was revealed in the new a-list documents, we think for the first time. All we can find is this PRnewswire piece which was probably paid for by NC4.com as part of its PR aimed at local LE departments.
This alone means that we are already seeing dividends from the ACLU case, before it is even heard.
Activist counter-intel successes.
Rolling Block Party at Fedex: 4/23/2018 Keedran on the car.
Almost as interesting, which squares with what we already knew from our previous blog about CCC’s counter-intel operations, is the fact that LE responses have been repeatedly been triggered by fake news planted by people close to CCC. Our blog uses Open Record information to document how fake news about an attempt on the Bridge escalated all the way to the top of State LE and to FBI. That incident appears to have escalated police response to protests, including the arrest of protesters on April 3rd by a snatch squad from the MPD Multi-Agency Gang Unit’s OCU (Organized Crime Unit). It was a pre-emption intended to abort a 6:30 bogus Bridge occupation. The OCU is all over the ACLU documents. The take-away from this is that information gleaned by MPD and TBI’s CIU from social media is even less reliable than the average social media fake news.
LE bites on fake intel, misses the real information.
Bruce Kramer, longtime ACLU attorney
Also revealed, something we also suspected from our blog: Not only is State LE liable to fly off the handle and escalate fake news to the top levels of local, State and Federal LE, but they have been doing a very poor job of eliciting the real intel they seek.
Our CCC story reveals that the unknown operational security measures CCC used to safely transmit the real April 3rd itinerary are working. The unadvertised first stop of the Rolling Block Party arrived at FedEx to find no police presence, and the police made the scene in a time span appropriate to a 911 dispatch. So, not only is the police intel gathering catching all the fake news, it is missing the real intel they are after.
Here’s the Daily Kos‘ Gary Moore on the April 3 arrests.
MPD gets vindictive from intel defeat.
Frustration at being totally confounded by this poorly financed, rag-tag group of activists may have led to Keedran Frankin‘s July 6th arrest, and the planting of evidence in his car. This arrest was allegedly in a traffic stop done by OCU, which is not exactly their beat.
Limitations of MPD’s social media spying.
The strange story of “Bob Smith’s” bogus social media account is also revealed. We had feared that MPD’s Real Time Crime Center had the ability to penetrate the end-to-end encryption used by Facebook. However, it appears that MPD was only able to view private data on Facebook to which their fake account, Bob Smith, had ‘friended’ itself. All the information in the earliest document released by the city suggests that only activists friended by Bob Smith could be accessed by MPD. In particular, Facebook Private Messages and secret groups which did not include Bob Smith were safe from spying.
We say this with a caveat: private Facebook stuff could be revealed via NSA decryption or by the issuance of a FICA court order, which does not require much in the way of probable cause. As far as I know, CCC used different means to organize the Rolling Block Party, and I don’t want to know what it was. CCC keeps ahead of LE spying by eternal vigilance and strict operational security.
Photo: Facebook
I was personally targeted by Bob Smith and the information used to smear me, as searches for “Fergus” and “Nolan” separately will reveal. In particular, my arrest on Memorial Day 2016 was presented to be because I advocated lawbreaking due to entrapment by Bob Smith as a deliberate act by MPD, which I know to be untrue. In addition, the story of my uncovering the A-list which I documented in this first party eye witness account is smeared by a bogus allegation of a fanciful meeting I was supposed to have with a County employee, who is standing for election this week. I promised I would not out this person until after the election, but this MPD cover story did not surface until after my A-list story needed to be discredited, and is at variance with my contemporary eye witness account. My story did not change. Theirs did.
In other news: Office of Homeland Security identified.
At MemphisTruth.org, we have been looking for the MPD’s Office of Homeland Security. It turns out to be two officers, Sergeant Tim Reynolds, promoted this April but identified in the documents as Detective, Sergeant and Lieutenant, and as Police Officer II in the current City salaries list. Also Sgt. Edwin Cornwell.
The Office of Homeland Security is part of MPD Special Operations, housed in the Special Operations division, which also houses the Real Time Crime Center which does most of MPD’s electronic spookery.
This is a witness account, so I am putting it in the first person. At the City Council meeting on July 24th 2018, I made a 2-minute speech at City Council, in which I referred to a vote in September 2017 in which Boyd did not recuse himself. Berlin Boyd responded with a remarkable diatribe, in which he said “…someone’s going to get hurt and it won’t be me.”
Background
I wrote a blog in July, 1544 Madison: An Open Letter to Berlin Boyd, which was part of a series of blogs on Boyd. The blog followed Boyd’s interactions with enterprises owned by Bill Orgel, including almost $40K in political contributions, a series of votes on the Land Use Control Board in which Boyd voted for permits for Orgel cell towers and a number of grants to Orgel developments, on which Boyd voted on City Council. I provided some open record requests at the EDGE board and DMC proving eleven meetings between Boyd and EDGE officials, Boyd’s partnership with Bill Orgel’s family firm and other Orgel lieutenants, and the issuance of a $6.2M PILOT to the partnership.
Berlin Boyd called me out.
At the previous Council meeting on July 10th, Boyd had an interaction with a speaker from the public, Aaron Fowles. In this extract from the official video, at minute 9:56, Boyd talks about Theryn Bond’s ejection from the chamber at the previous meeting and continues “… People who put lies out and people get contracts and go to Nashville and set up TDZ’s. Are you serious. And you sit there and lie and hold your camera…”. I was holding a camera at the time.
I had written “Berlin Boyd applied to the State of Tennessee to expand the Tourism Development Zone northwards.”, in relation to the Mud Island TDZ. In the linked article in the Memphis Daily News: “Memphis City Councilman Berlin Boyd said that he’s waiting to hear back from the state of Tennessee about an expansion of Mud Island’s tourism development zone to encompass the Pinch District.
Mystery car noted on Facebook.
On July 10th, someone posted about seeing a vehicle with Mississippi plates and a “B BOYD” vanity tag parked in front of City Hall. A comment was made that it might be Berlin Boyd’s car and I said it might have been former council member Bill Boyd.
On the 24th, I posted on MRYE for people to keep an eye out for this car and get a photo. I did not mention Berlin Boyd, just quoted the vanity plate.
Comment on Facebook 7/24/2018
What Happened at City Hall
Here’s an excerpt from the 2-minute speeches on 7/24/2018, taken from the official video. As I felt that Boyd had directly addressed me on the 10th, I came to Council and spoke.
Thanks to Councilwoman Janis Fullilove
I started out by thanking Councilwoman Fullilove, who had said, “Last fall, I deferred to some of my colleagues on the City Council who expressed concern about IRV. I have rethought my position. The people have already voted for this. We ought to give it a try”. I added: thank you Councilwoman Fullilove, one honest council member”.
Correcting the Nashville misquote
Then I referred to Boyd’s statement from the previous meeting. Boyd said that I had said he went to Nashville, then gave the quote above from my blog: “Berlin Boyd applied to the State of Tennessee to expand the Tourism Development Zone northwards.” And then I quoted the original Daily News article which I had linked. I pointed out the misquote.
Conflict of Interest in September vote
Then I went on to my final point of the evening. 2/28/2017 1544 Madison Partners buys the Madison Avenue property. 9/5/2017: Berlin Boyd votes on City Council for a cell tower special use permit for Tower Assets Newco IX LLC, one of Bill Orgel’s cell tower ventures. This vote happened after the 1544 Madison property deal, so Orgel was a partner of Boyd at the time of this vote.
I was about to go on and ask why Boyd had not recused himself, when I got cut off.
Berlin Boyd lashes out
Berlin Boyd: What does this have to do with… Let me just say this. I am about to go on record to file a restraining order against you, because you are becoming excessive and stalkerish. You just lied two seconds ago when you said that I was driving a vehicle with Mississippi tags on it. I do not own a vehicle with Mississippi tags on it. **
Berlin Boyd: But I will go on record to put a restraining order against you, because someone’s going to get hurt and it won’t be me. I guarantee that. Have a nice day.
Me: So I’m going to get hurt, am I?
BB: Sir, you drive by my house and that’s inappropriate.
Me: I’ve never driven by your house.
BB: I’m not debating you sir.
Me: I’ve never been on your street.
BB: I have cameras at my house, sir, and your behavior is excessive. You’re stalking me and lying on me every chance you get. Sir, please have a seat.
Me: I’ve never lied about you.
BB: Set him out, get your facts straight, kick him out
** This is a reference to my request for people to photograph the “B BOYD” vanity tag. I never said he was driving the car.
Boyd Highlights
I have never stalked Boyd, never been on his street, and I am not on Boyd’s security camera footage. He is a corrupt public figure and I have blogged about him. I have not lied about Berlin Boyd.
Boyd issued a physical threat in response to my fair comment.
Berlin Boyd lies a lot. He should release his security footage. I predict he won’t.
Conclusion
Berlin Boyd is rattled about my blog. There’s a smoking gun there.
Legal Fees Fundraiser.
Please donate to my fundraiser at fundly.com. I’m raising money to pay an attorney to get an order of protection against Berlin Boyd. (Updated 7/26/2018).
UPDATED: see last section for updates from 7/9 and 7/11/2018.
On the evening of Friday 6th July, 2018, Keedran Franklin was arrested by Organized Crime Unit detectives. OCU is part of the Multi-agency Gang Unit (MGU) which is a joint operation of MPD and the Sheriff’s Dept.
En route from Midtown to his south-east Memphis home, Keedran stopped at a friend’s house near Sharpe Ave. and Robin Hood Lane, and pulled in to a nearby driveway to turn around. Two police vehicles blocked him in the driveway with their dome-lights on, and two detectives, probably OCU (Organized Crime Unit) emerged.
Keedran Franklin displays lacerations after his 7/7/2018 release from 201 Poplar.
Franklin got out of his car and one of the police who had blocked the driveway lunged at him with handcuffs, injuring his left elbow and right wrist and arm.
One of the OCU police told him “You’re lucky, bitch, we was going to do you.”
Franklin was afterwards taken to the ER, where a dressing was applied to his left elbow and he was treated for cuts and bruising on his right wrist and arm.
While Franklin was being taken down, up to 20 additional OCU police arrived on the scene.
The Bust
The police claimed they smelled marijuana and used this as a probable-cause excuse to search his vehicle. This is a classic MPD move for turning a profiled traffic stop into a 4th amendment evasion and an arrest. It’s a large part of the reason why black men are arrested at three and a half times the rate of white men.
Franklin was cuffed and detained at the scene while officers searched his car. They found nothing. Later a canine unit arrived on the scene and a dog sniffed the car. At that point, 114.7 grams of marijuana and 19 grams of psilocybin mushrooms were found “somewhere around the back seat”.
The substances were planted in his vehicle by MPD.
Franklin was transported to 201 Poplar, with a detour to the ER for treatment of his injuries.
Incidentally, MGU and OGU officers don’t wear body cams and TNT did not get his phone out before being cuffed, so we don’t expect video of the arrest.
The Charges
Screen shot from Shelby County Criminal Court records
In the System
Keedran Franklin is greeted by adoring crowds at 201 Poplar after his midnight Saturday release.
The case number is 18016596. Keedran was booked on Friday and an arrest affidavit sworn, although it is not yet on file in the County system. Bail was set at $3000 via a video arraignment Saturday morning, and Franklin was released a few minutes before midnight on Saturday. His arraignment happened at 08:30 Monday morning in front of Judge Tim Dwyer.
CCC
Franklin is a founder member of Memphis Coalition of Concerned Citizens, an activist group which arise after the 2016 Bridge protest. CCC has at least thirty affiliated groups and has created C3 Community Cooperative, an urban gardening project. CCC runs regular Books and Breakfast events and has done things like distribute food and free movie tickets among the poor.
OCU officers at Franklin’s previous arrest on April 3rd.
Our April blog, about C3’s hoaxes played on Law Enforcement, details the events that led up to Franklin’s previous misdemeanor arrest, also at the hands of OCU. Franklin’s 4/3/2018 arrest is thought to be a snatch squad action designed to remove Franklin and other CCC leaders and prevent a faux-scheduled occupation of the bridge at 6:30 that evening.
Fake information had been released about the Bridge occupation which we tracked all the way up to the Tennessee Homeland Security commissioner. This was the most recent of a long list of CCC feints and surprises for law enforcement. Tenn. Highway Patrol had stationed 50 troopers at the Memphis Welcome Center on 7/9/2017 while CCC was holding a one year anniversary of the 2016 Bridge occupation. The Hernando de Soto bridge is the achilles heel of Tennessee law enforcement.
The Bridge, once more.
Keedran Franklin, at Health Sciences Park, August 12th 2017
This weekend, word had again gotten out that CCC was planning another Bridge occupation on Saturday July 8th at noon. We’ll put in new ORRs on Monday to see what MPD and the Fusion Centers have been saying. The rising frustration among LE at CCC’s ability to ring the changes on protest locations has become very apparent.
The real event planned for Saturday was a potluck at First Congregational Church on Cooper.
Was the OCU action in arresting Franklin another pre-emptive strike designed to remove the leadership and “prevent” another Bridge occupation? Did the call to “rid me of this turbulent priest” come from the highest levels of MPD and the State?
Cover-up at the CA?
CA front page, 7/8/2018
This is perhaps the strangest event of the weekend. The CA had published Franklin’s arrest story on-line at about 2 PM Saturday, and this headline appeared on the front page in Sunday’s edition. But the print edition’s page 4 did not carry the story, no anywhere else in the paper.
Is the fix in. Did the CA pull the print version of the story as a favor for someone in the City or MPD. The story was finally published on Monday 9th.
UPDATE 7/9/2018: Mark Russell, Executive Editor of the CA, emailed me to day that the Sunday omission was inadvertent “It appears that the wrong page A-4 was picked up the press room and that story did not run as planned.” Human error.
We plan to update this story as the facts come in.
Update 7/11/2018: TNT’s case is scheduled for preliminary hearing on 7/23/2018. Veteran duo of civil rights attorneys Scott and Bruce Kramer are working on his case.
1544 Madison Partners (pdf) is a general partnership with Berlin Boyd, Adam Slovis, Benjamin Orgel, Jay Lindy, Michael McLaughlin, Orgel Family LP and Three Madison Partners.
Berlin Boyd is the City Councilor for District Seven.
Adam Slovis is a realtor and was Berlin Boyd’s employer from 2008 until Boyd’s realtor’s license expired in July 2014. Slovis and Associates acquires cell tower sites for Tower Ventures.
Benjamin Orgel is William Orgel’s son. Orgel senior is principal of Tower Ventures, which owns cell towers. He is on the SCS board and is one of the biggest political donors in Shelby County.
William Orgel (Photo: Tower Ventures)
Benjamin Orgel (Photo: Choose901)
Jay Lindy (Photo: Tower Venures)
Adam Slovis (Photo: Slovis Commercial)
Jay Lindy is an attorney, and COO and general counsel for Tower Ventures.
Orgel Family LP is William and Benjamin Orgel’s investment company.
Three Madison Partners is the previous owner of the site at 1544 Madison. It is thought to be connected to Boyle Investments, who are mentioned in the 1544 Madison deeds.
Berlin Boyd’s Tower Contributions
Berlin Boyd received the following contributions from the above investors between 2014 and 2017: 2/20/2014: Steven (Exec VP for Asset Development at Tower) and Sharon Chandler; Craig (Exec VP for Carrier Leasing at Tower) and Cathy Weiss; Bill and Robin Orgel; Jay Lindy; Craig Royal (VP for Construction and Operations at Tower); and Adam Slovis donate a total of $11,950 to Boyd’s County campaign. All contributions from this section are from the Shelby County Election Commission.
April 2014: Jay Lindy donates $500 to Boyd
March-April 2015: six Tower executives / spouses donate $8,500 to Boyd 2015 District 7 campaign
October 2015: six Tower executives / spouses donate $9,000 to Boyd District 7 campaign for the runoff
6/1/2017: Benjamin, William and Robin Orgel, Susan Lindy, Adam Slovis and Sharon Chandler donate $6500 to Boyd.
7/13/2017: Cathy Weiss and Craig Royal donate $2000 to Boyd.
Total donations in this period from Tower associates: $39,450.
There were additional donations in kind for the 6/1/2017 fundraiser at Bill and Robin Orgel’s house.
Tennessee Brewery
Tennessee Brewery. Photo: Fergus Nolan
The Tennessee Brewery is an Orgel development. The site, at 495 Tennessee St, was bought by 495 Tennessee LLC which was owned by William Orgel on November 5th 2014. The Commercial Appeal also named Jay Lindy and Adam Slovis as partners. The Commercial Appeal tells the story of the development. The former Goldcrest 51 brewery, built in the 1870s, closed in 1954 and has been vacant since the 1980s. A succession of previous owners ending with The Tennessee Brewery LLC, had spent millions stabilizing the structure but on 11/5/2014 495 Tennessee Partners bought the property for $850K, in a predatory purchase. On 2/10/2015 495 Tennessee Partners bought a parking garage site across Tennessee St. and assembled incentives: parking garage funding, PILOT tax abatement, federal historic preservation tax credits and a city grant to replacing century-old utility infrastructure. Berlin Boyd was helpful with these City boons. Another site north of the Brewery was also acquired for additional apartments.
On 5/26/2015, Boyd seconds and votes for a $2.5M capital grant to MLGW after Orgel makes a presentation to the Budget Committee. The grant was for improving utility infrastructure at Tennessee Brewery. Boyd did not recuse himself from this vote.
6/23/2015 Boyd votes at City Council for the budget containing the $2.5M MLGW line item, for Tennessee Brewery. Boyd did not recuse himself from this vote.
12/15/2015: Boyd votes for a $2,250,000 contract at City Council (item 51) for project PW01270, for public infrastructure around the Tennessee Brewery. Boyd did not recuse himself from this vote.
5/12/2016: Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) approves $28.1M PILOT for Tennessee Brewery.
3/8/2018 LUCB approves street closures for 1544 Madison, minutes (pdf). Boyd was present during that meeting, although not a current member of LUCB.
Berlin Boyd’s access at DMC
We obtained Open Records DMC emails from Boyd and from DMC to Boyd showing that Boyd and DMC executives were in constant communication, attended meetings together and had casual coffee dates. It is clear that Boyd’s Council status provided him immediate top-level access at DMC.
11/18/2013: LUCB: (Land Use Control Board). Boyd votes for 3 Tower-affiliated cell towers. (pdf) Boyd voted for many more of these cell towers without recusing himself, literally too many to count.
9/5/2017: Berlin Boyd votes on City Council for a cell tower special use permit for Tower Assets Newco IX LLC, one of Bill Orgel’s cell tower ventures. This vote happened after the 1544 Madison property deal, so Orgel was a partner of Boyd at the time of this vote. Boyd also voted for an Orgel cell tower on 4/1/2015.
The Snuff Factory
Former Snuff Factory site
On 17/1/2016 Bill Orgel bought a vacant property at the northeast corner of Keel and N. Main for $250,000. Deed 1Deed 2 (pdf), trading as Keel Steet LLC, with the same Viscount Ave corporate address as the other Orgel businesses.
This site is a couple of blocks north of the Pinch District, which is undergoing major redevelopment, with Bass Pro and the $9 Billion St Jude expansion. Berlin Boyd applied to the State of Tennessee to expand the Tourism Development Zone northwards. He has been promoting the Pinch redevelopment plan since late 2015. It is still to be seen what will happen at The Snuff Factory, but Boyd and Orgel are on the job.
EDGE and the 1544 Madison Development
1/1/2016 Berlin Boyd became the City Council representative on the EDGE board for calendar 2016. EDGE minutes.
2/2/2016 Boyd has a dispute with EDGE board chairman Reid Dulberger over minority contracts by PILOT recipients. Dulberger responded with a report at the February 17th Edge meeting with some numbers on minority and women contracts by PILOT recipients. The Boyd / Dulburger dispute seemed to recede after this, although some commentators say that the dispute provided Boyd with some leverage over Dulberger and the EDGE board. During Boyd’s year as City Council rep on EDGE, he was not marked present at a single EDGE board meeting, although the access that was granted him as a board member placed him in an excellent position to lobby the EDGE Board and employees.
10/19/2017 $6,177,765 PILOT granted for 1544 Madison, showing $24,775,069 in capital investment
2/12/2018: Smart City writes on EDGE’s “loosest slots in town”, questioning the need for more residential PILOTs. Downtown and Midtown are in the midst of a residential property boom, occasioned by the City’s decision to discontinue new sewer connections in the County. Residential PILOTs are far outside the norm for local government, and, as the announcement of the cessation of new sewer hookups dates only from August 2017, adding a redundant stimulus without first assessing the effect of the sewer impetus is irresponsible. The only proven benefit of residential PILOTs are a tax handout to the property owners.
3/8/2018 LUCB approves street closures for 1544 Madison, minutes (pdf). Boyd was present during that meeting, although not a current member of LUCB.
Berlin Boyd’s access at EDGE.
Boyd’s dealings at EDGE has given him a lot of access to their highest policy-making levels. We received Berlin Boyd’s email log (pdf) from EDGE via Open Records Request. He received 76 emails between September 2016 and March 2018, mostly invitations to Board meetings, EDGE Performance Review meetings and ED Finance Committee meetings. While Boyd was not marked present at any EDGE meetings we can find, a second Open Records request produced these eleven emails between 2015 and 2017 with additional meeting appointments. Boyd met, at City Hall, First Tennessee Bank, University of Memphis and EDGE, with EDGE management, including Reid Dulberger and Carmen Franklin. It is clear that Berlin Boyd had almost unrestricted access to EDGE board members from January 2106 to present, during the critical time when EDGE was considering residential PILOTs and specifically the pilot granted for 1544 Madison Partners in October 2017. Boyd was a super-lobbyist for 1544 Madison Partners.
Summary
Berlin Boyd’s relationship with Slovis, Orgel and their associates and ventures dates from at least 2008. Boyd received over $39K and other political donations from them. He voted on Council four times for over $10M of benefits to Tennessee brewery, and at LUCB and Council for at least eight Orgel cell tower permits. He has met with DMC executives many times in the course of his official business.
He was an EDGE board member and met numerous times with EDGE executives during a time when EDGE changed policy to allow residential PILOTs and when EDGE granted a $6.1M PILOT to a venture of which he is a partner.
He voted for an Orgel cell tower in September 2017 when Boyd and Orgel were partners, without recusing himself.
A question for Berlin Boyd.
Berlin Boyd. You have been in a position to influence the granting of valuable benefits to your partners in 1544 Madison. Can you show us a cashed check for the amount of your investment in 1544 Madison? Edge valued the investment at $24,775,069. Did you pay the $4.12M that your one sixth share is worth?
If that was a freebie, please explain exactly what you did for 1544 Madison Partners and its individual partners to deserve such a valuable boon?
CORRECTION: 7/5/2018. We removed a photo of Reid Hedgepeth and an incorrect reference to his company. We inserted an additional item related to a $2,250,000 contract for infrastructure work at Tennessee brewery for which Boyd voted on 12/15/2015. Apologies to all concerned.
MPD’s AoA is different. It specified the property, but also has one or more individuals who are barred from the property. This is unique to MPD’s version of AoA.
We submitted an open records request for all AoAs filed since December 1st 2016, and received about 
Probably one of the most significant finding to date is the identification of the Geofeedia replacement. The ACLU had been after this product as the social media spy tool of choice until the social media powerhouses 
Frustration at being totally confounded by this poorly financed, rag-tag group of activists may have led to 
In other news: Office of Homeland Security identified.
—concluded—
5/12/2016: Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) approves 
1/1/2016 Berlin Boyd became the City Council representative on the EDGE board for calendar 2016. 
Boyd’s dealings at EDGE has given him a lot of access to their highest policy-making levels. We received 
Berlin Boyd. You have been in a position to influence the granting of valuable benefits to your partners in 1544 Madison. Can you show us a cashed check for the amount of your investment in 1544 Madison? Edge valued the investment at 
Memphis Truth Commission 
