Trial opens for accused Cleveland serial killer (Reuters)

CLEVELAND (Reuters) – Prosecutors named each of the 11 women Anthony Sowell is alleged to have murdered and where their decomposing bodies were found buried in or around his house in opening statements for his trial on Monday.

Sowell, 51, has been charged with the aggravated murders of the Cleveland women, whose bodies were discovered by police in his house and backyard in fall 2009. Prosecutors seek the death penalty.

Cuyahoga County prosecutor Rick Bombik told jurors the case would be one they would never forget. Prosecutors outlined when each woman went missing, where in Sowell's house or backyard their bodies were found, and in what condition.

"It will be burned into your memories as long as you live," Bombik said.

Most of the homicides for which Sowell has been charged were caused by "ligature strangulation" and all of the victims were found nude or naked from the waist down.

Sowell's attorney, John Parker, described his client as a man with a "regular job" and who "had a relationship" in a statement that ran a little more than 11 minutes.

Parker said there were "no eye witnesses, no fingerprints and no DNA," in the case. The "forensic evidence will be greatly disappointing," he told the jury.

The defense also said there was no evidence of kidnapping or "planning" that would justify the aggravated circumstances of the murder charges and questioned the "credibility" of the witnesses who will testify against Sowell.

The trial before Judge Dick Ambrose is expected to include testimony from three alleged survivors. Prosecutors also are expected to present more than 8 hours of taped interviews between Sowell and the police.

On Monday prosecutors presented testimony from the first officer who arrived on the scene at Sowell's house and the owner of a sausage shop next to his house.

Earlier in the day jurors were taken to the home where Sowell lived and where the bodies of the 11 women were found.

(Editing by David Bailey and Jerry Norton)

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Trial opens for La. officers charged in shootings (AP)

NEW ORLEANS – The first day of jury selection ended Wednesday without anyone seated to hear the case of five current or former New Orleans police officers charged in the deadly shootings of unarmed people on a bridge in Hurricane Katrina's chaotic aftermath.

For more than five hours, U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt and attorneys questioned prospective jurors individually behind closed doors. The jury pool is set to return Thursday for more questioning.

Still, Engelhardt told the jury pool they were making good progress.

"I'm very confident that we will complete this process (Thursday)," he said.

Earlier Wednesday, roughly 70 potential jurors were questioned in open court about their Katrina experiences and their knowledge of the case in which two people were fatally shot and four others wounded after the 2005 storm. The shootings happened on the Danziger Bridge less than a week after levee failures during the storm flooded 80 percent of the city.

When Engelhardt asked the assembled pool whether they had heard anything about the case, almost all of them raised their hands, and about a half dozen raised hands when asked if they had formed an opinion on the officers' guilt or innocence.

During questioning about Katrina, one jury pool member said the Coast Guard rescued him from the city. Several others said they had relatives who had to be rescued.

Five former officers already have pleaded guilty to participating in a cover-up to make it appear that police were justified in the shootings.

Four other officers — Sgts. Kenneth Bowen and Robert Gisevius, officer Anthony Villavaso and former officer Robert Faulcon — were indicted last year on charges stemming from the shootings. Two police investigators — retired Sgts. Arthur Kaufman and Gerard Dugue — were charged in the alleged cover-up.

Dugue will be tried separately. The trial for the other five indicted officers is expected to last up to eight weeks.

Engelhardt read a list of about 170 potential witnesses, including two former police chiefs, Eddie Compass and Warren Riley.

One of the potential witnesses listed by Kaufman's attorney is James Youngman, who was named in a police report as a civilian who witnessed part of the shootings. Prosecutors, however, claim Youngman was an imaginary person Kaufman fabricated as part of the alleged cover-up.

In a court filing Tuesday, prosecutors asked Engelhardt to order Kaufman's attorney to provide identifying information that would allow them to interview Youngman, if he exists. In response, Kaufman's lawyer said his client denies fabricating Youngman but says the government has the burden of proving he doesn't exist.

The case is one of several Justice Department probes of alleged misconduct by New Orleans police officers. Last year, a jury convicted three current or former officers in the death of a 31-year-old man who was shot by a police officer in Katrina's aftermath before another officer burned his body.

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Slaying trial opens in Pittsburgh officer deaths (AP)

PITTSBURGH – A man being tried on charges he murdered three city police officers who responded to a domestic disturbance call was a "coward" who fired extra shots just to make sure the officers were dead, a prosecutor told the jury in opening statements Monday.

Allegheny County Deputy District Attorney Mark Tranquilli spoke for about 30 minutes to open what's expected to be a two-week trial before a sequestered jury. The jury, bused to Pittsburgh on Sunday, was selected earlier this month more than 150 miles away in Harrisburg to avoid any prejudice because of pretrial publicity surrounding Richard Poplawski, 24. He has pleaded not guilty.

Poplawski's mother woke him early on the morning of April 4, 2009, upset because he had failed to let some puppies out of the house before they urinated. When the argument escalated, Margaret Poplawski called 911, and while she mentioned her son had weapons, she told the dispatcher they were legal and not "in play" in the dispute, Tranquilli said.

Poplawski donned a ballistic vest and readied three weapons — a 12-gauge shotgun loaded with pellet- and rifled-slug shells, a .357 Magnum and an AK-47 assault rifle, Tranquilli said.

When Officer Paul Sciullo II arrived at what police believed was a routine disturbance call, Poplawski killed him with the shotgun, then engaged in a gun battle with a second officer, Stephen Mayhle, who was "outgunned" with only his .40-caliber Glock pistol, Tranquilli said. The third officer killed, Eric Kelly, had arrived home — about two blocks from Poplawski's residence — after an overnight shift but went to back up the others when he heard radio calls about the shootings, Tranquilli said.

"He never even got out of his SUV. Richard Poplawski was waiting for him on the high ground," Tranquilli said, noting how Poplawski fired on the officers, and at least nine others who responded to the shooting, from his house near the end of a dead-end street.

Another officer later testified that the wounded Kelly told him to "tell my wife and kids I love them" before he died.

Officer Timothy McManaway was overcome by emotion as he testified Monday, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported

"I said, `You're going to have to tell them yourself. You're going to have to fight and get through this,'" McManaway said. "I was trying to get him to fight and be angry."

Poplawski faces three umbrella counts of criminal homicide, and could face the death penalty if the jury decides any or all the shootings rise to first-degree murder.

He's also charged with nine counts each of attempted murder and assault on law officers for shooting at other police, as well as lesser charges, prosecutors said.

Public defender Lisa Middleman told the jury that some witnesses and physical evidence will contradict the police version of events and even suggested without elaborating that prosecutors haven't accounted for the actions of Poplawski's mother. Margaret Poplawski has not been charged and prosecutors have not suggested she aided her son in any way.

Middleman told the jury Tranquilli was wrongly injecting emotion into the trial by repeatedly referring to the dead officers as "fallen heroes" and accusing Poplawski of cowardice after Tranquilli said, "Richard Poplawski decided to shoot each one of (the dead officers) where they lay, just to make sure" they were dead.

Tranquilli also warned the jury to disregard evidence that SWAT officers hit Sciullo with "friendly fire" when they fired back at Poplawski because that happened "after he (Sciullo) was already dead."

"This case is not about you deciding if these men were fallen heroes. This case isn't about whether he (Poplawski) is a coward," Middleman said. "This case is about whether the prosecution has enough evidence to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt."

Tranquilli said Poplawski's statements to police and negotiators will reveal a racist bent.

Tranquilli said Poplawski used racial slurs when he spoke to police and acted "almost as if he was proud of what he had done. It was his one chance to make the history books," Tranquilli said. Officer Kelly was black.

Middleman warned the jury, which includes two black men, that the prosecution's burden of proof "is not any less because they want to throw racial epithets at you at the start of the case so you will despise the defendant."

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Trial opens for cops charged in Katrina killings (AP)

NEW ORLEANS – On a brisk January morning in 2007, seven New Orleans police officers waded through a crowd of cheering supporters outside the city's jail to face charges stemming from a deadly encounter with residents on a bridge in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. Before they were booked, the grim-faced officers accepted hugs and handshakes from fellow cops who shouted, "Heroes! Heroes!"

Three of the officers who received the hero's welcome have admitted they were concealing a dark secret the day they surrendered, one so lurid it stunned a city with a long history of police corruption.

The other four members of the so-called Danziger Seven — named after the bridge where police shot and killed two unarmed people and wounded four others — and another police investigator go on trial Wednesday in a federal case that will rehash the most infamous chapter in the city's awful post-Katrina annals and could severely test efforts to mend the police department's frayed relationship with the public.

One officer is accused of fatally shooting a mentally disabled man in the back before a sergeant stomped on him. Prosecutors say the same sergeant, armed with an assault rifle, fired on wounded and unarmed people lying on the ground. All are accused of participating in a cover-up that allegedly included a plot to plant a gun, fabricate witnesses and falsify reports.

"It's going to be a painful process for this whole community to see the depths to which the police department had fallen to," said Rafael Goyeneche, head of an independent police watchdog group in New Orleans. "But I also think it's absolutely necessary to bring officers who betrayed the public trust to justice."

The group was dubbed the Danziger Seven after they were charged in state court with murder or attempted murder in December 2006, but a judge threw out all the charges in August 2008. Federal authorities then began their own investigation a month later, which led to charges against the Danziger Seven and four others.

The Danziger Bridge shootings broke out the morning of Sept. 4, 2005, less than a week after flooding from broken levees plunged New Orleans into chaos. After hearing a radio call that other officers were taking fire, a group of officers working from a makeshift station piled into a rental truck and drove to the bridge, which connects two neighborhoods hit hardest by flooding.

Prosecutors' account of what happened next is outlined in court filings that accompanied guilty pleas last year by five former officers, including Danziger Seven members Michael Hunter, Robert Barrios and Ignatius Hills. All five admitted participating in the cover-up.

Hunter, who drove the rental truck, says he fired warning shots when he saw a handful of people casually walking on the east side of the bridge. The people scattered and took cover behind a concrete barrier. As the truck stopped, an unidentified sergeant allegedly fired an assault rifle at a man who raised his head above the barrier but didn't appear to be armed.

Hunter says he exited the truck and saw the sergeant and at least one other officer firing at the barrier. They initially complied with his order to stop shooting, as he believed there was no threat. But the sergeant "suddenly leaned over the concrete barrier, held out his assault rifle, and, in a sweeping motion, fired repeatedly at the civilians lying wounded on the ground," according to an April 2010 court filing.

Police shot and killed 17-year-old James Brissette on the east side of the bridge. Hunter hitched a ride with a state trooper to the west side of the bridge, where they saw Lance Madison and his 40-year-old mentally disabled brother, Ronald, running away.

As the trooper's car stopped, an unnamed officer fired a shotgun at Ronald Madison's back. As Madison lay dying on the pavement, the sergeant repeatedly kicked and stomped on him "with as much force as he could muster," the court filing says. Prosecutors say neither brother was armed.

Yet Lance Madison was arrested on charges he tried to kill officers. He was jailed for three weeks but released without being indicted.

The officers have claimed they opened fire only after being shot at. They point to testimony less than a month after the shootings by Lance Madison, who said a group of teenagers fired at him and his brother before they encountered police.

Prosecutors, however, claim police immediately embarked on a brazen cover-up because they knew they had shot unarmed residents.

Jeffrey Lehrmann, a former detective who pleaded guilty to participating in a cover-up, says he helped craft and document false stories about the shootings, using Katrina's hardships as an excuse for gaps in the probe.

The remaining four Danziger Seven members — Sgts. Robert Gisevius and Kenneth Bowen, officer Anthony Villavaso and former officer Robert Faulcon — will be tried on charges related to the shootings.

Two other officers — retired Sgts. Arthur Kaufman and Gerard Dugue, who investigated the shootings — are charged with participating in a cover-up. Kaufman will be tried along with the four Danziger Seven members. Dugue will be tried separately.

Henry Dean, a New Orleans police commander and president of the local Fraternal Order of Police, said the rank-and-file's support for the accused officers hasn't waned since the day they were greeted with applause outside the jail.

"The way it's expressed has changed, that's all," Dean said.

But he conceded the Danziger case and several other Justice Department probes of alleged police corruption in New Orleans have eroded the public's trust.

"It has made their job a little more difficult," Dean said.

A judge has refused to move the trial despite defense claims that the officers can't get a fair trial in New Orleans because of widespread news media coverage of this and other cases, including last year's trial in the post-Katrina death of Henry Glover, 31. A jury convicted a former officer of manslaughter for shooting Glover and found another guilty of burning his body in a car.

The judge also has ruled out any general testimony about the chaos after the storm, when helicopters were plucking stranded residents from rooftops, looting was rampant and dead bodies littered the city. Many officers abandoned their posts. Those who stayed endured harsh conditions, with little sleep and few ways to communicate.

Andrea Celestine, a sister of Danziger shooting victim James Brissette, said months passed before her family could confirm he was dead. And they didn't know police were responsible until a New Orleans prosecutor approached them about a year after Katrina. She said her mother has waited to hold a funeral until the trial is done.

"It's just so senseless," she said. "It's almost like they were using them for target practice."

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