on easter sunday 2007 multiple units of the alexandria, louisiana police department descended upon the home of robert and doris moses located on lisa street in alexandria.
doris moses
during the course of their 'investigation' the police checked the license plates of all the vehicles parked in the moses driveway and discovered that mr. robert moses had several minor misdemeanor warrants outstanding. by minor, we mean for instance, one warrant was for fishing without a license.
the apd then asked mrs. moses for permission to enter the family home to search for mr. moses and she denied that request. the police then called the duty rapides parish assistant district attorney who instructed the police department not to enter the family home.
during the course of all this, ms. moses got into her car and left to attend easter sunday services at her church. a police car that had been blocking her driveway was moved by a policeman to allow her to exit.
the video tells the story of what happened next. officer rachal had no reason (probable cause) to pull ms. moses over the first place much less drag her from her car and taser her. even if officer rachal did have probable cause why did he just moments earlier allow her to leave her home?
the judge and the city attorney agreed and threw all the charges against ms. moses out. according to ms. moses, before her court date she went to the police station to file a complaint against officer rachal but was intimidated into not doing so. she said that the police officer she talked to insinuated that an investigation into the incident could result in even more charges being filed against her. (see how they operate?)
click here to listen to a four minutes streaming audio clip from ms. moses lawyer, gregory r.aymond, esq., who explains the incident.
who is kenneth rachal?
according to a 05 february 2008, gannett/town talk story link | three page .pdf , kenneth rachal, appears to be a loose cannon with a history of aberrant behavior. two examples from the town talk story:
in 2002 officer rachal's police k-9 dog, "rudy" died after officer rachal left him unattended in his car for six hours.====
click here to download ten page .pdf
in the moses incident and after three civil service board hearings the board votes 3 - 2 to reinstate officer rachal. notice how neither the gannett/town talk in their report or the media general/kalb in theirs bother to name the three board members who voted to reinstate officer rachal or whether the vote was public or not. this is more of the main stream media's habit of leaving out important information in their stories.
police officers roar with laughter at tasering of doris moses
in the officer.com forums, a forum only for police officers these police officers miss the point that officer rachal had no probable cause to pull ms. moses over in the first place. their only concern is the act of tasering someone and getting away with it and not in the validity of the legality of their actions leading up to it. ~ link
this is another indication of the need for a citizens review board for the police department as explained here.
the city of alexandria has thirty days to appeal the civil service board ruling and for the sake of alexandrians safety we sure hope they do so.
for more information click the 'shocking apd video' label in the footer of this post.
