Humbolt County Police use Q-Tip to smear pepper spray on peaceful protesters eyes
Activits/ victims WIN case in court (2005)
San Francisco — An eight-person federal jury has returned a unanimous verdict for the Q-Tip Pepper Spray Eight
activists/plaintiffs, finding the County of Humboldt and City of Eureka liable for excessive force in violation of the 4th
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The excessive force was used by Humboldt County Sheriff's Deputies and Eureka Police Officers when they applied pepper
spray with Q-tips directly to the eyes of the eight nonviolent forest defense protesters in three incidents in 1997. Three
of the activists were also sprayed directly in the eyes from inches away. Two of the young women were juveniles.
By BRIAN ROSS, MADDY SAUER &
JUSTIN ROOD Dec. 10, 2007
A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped
by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.
Jones told ABCNews.com that an examination by
Army doctors showed she had been raped "both vaginally and anally," but that the rape kit disappeared after it was handed
over to KBR security officers.
Over two years later, the Justice Department
has brought no criminal charges in the matter. In fact, ABC News could not confirm any federal agency was investigating the
case.
Legal experts say Jones' alleged assailants
will likely never face a judge and jury, due to an enormous loophole that has effectively left contractors in Iraq beyond
the reach of United States law.
The Department of Justice refused to send a representative to answer questions from Congress today
on the investigations into allegations of rape and sexual assault on female American contractors.
"I'm embarrassed that the Department of Justice can't even come forward," said the chairman of the
House Judiciary Committee John Conyers, D-Mich.
"This is an absolute disgrace," said Conyers. "The least we could do is have people from the Department
of Justice and the Defense over here talking about how we're going to straighten out the system right away."
Among the witnesses who testified today was Jamie Leigh Jones, who appeared on "20/20" last week.
Jones, now 23, says that after she'd been raped by multiple assailants in her room at a KBR camp in
the Green Zone, she was warned by company officials that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.
To date there has been no prosecution of the men who Jones says gang-raped her.
Jones' congressman, Ted Poe, R-Texas, also testified at the hearing and told the committee how he has
not been given any answers as to the status of the investigation by DOJ or the State Department.
"The Department of Justice has not informed Jamie or me of the status of a criminal investigation against
her rapist if any investigation exists," Poe said today. "It is interesting to note that the Department of Justice has thousands
of lawyers but not one from the barrage of lawyers is here to tell us what if anything they are doing. Their absence and silence
speaks volumes about the hidden crimes in Iraq. Their attitude seems to be one of blissful indifference to American workers
in Iraq," said Poe.
Jones told Congress that it wasn't until after she was interviewed by "20/20," that an assistant U.S.
attorney in Florida questioned her about her case.
"I asked the AUSA, 'Where should I refer victims to contact me?' and she responded, 'Don't refer them
to my office, but you may want to refer them to the office of victims of crime,'" Jones recounted for Congress today.
But the Department of Justice Crime Victims office, in a letter to Jamie's lawyer, had
already said it had closed out her complaint claiming it did not have jurisdiction.
The Department of Justice, following the hearing, said today that the department is "investigating
this matter" but would not elaborate.
Jones has now filed a lawsuit against Halliburton and KBR.
KBR says that in the case of Jones they were quick to offer her support and assistance.
Halliburton says it is improperly named the lawsuit.
