The sexual predator — Milwaukee’s Officer Vagnini
[My Honest Truth]
There is a strong element of sexual perversion in many of the police crimes against Black males; a Milwaukee case illustrates it best as I will discuss below.
Not very long ago, all Black and Latino males who complained of illegal treatment by police were called liars. Back in the day even my own mother told me that for the police to be harassing me, I must be doing something wrong.
This was during the 1960s. I was a teenager at the time and I thought the constant Stopping-and-Frisking would end when I got older. It didnt; I was often fondled in my genitals.
I now have an insiders view of the police department after being terrorized by them for many years.
A recent police case in Milwaukee brought back memories for me. In December of 2013, a reporter by the name of Kristin Tate published an article in TruthInMedia
that detailed the activities of a police crew of five headed by officer Michael Vagnini of the Milwaukee Police Department. They chose only Black males, some as young as 15, as victims. There were dozens of victims and some were stalked and assaulted by Vagnini and his crew many times over a period of years.
Vagnini was found to have fondled their genitals and fingered their anal cavities; and he seemed to have some favorites. One man claimed he was terrorized four times and was not charged, arrested or accused of any crime.
It is illegal for police officers to perform cavity searches only medical personnel are allowed to do this. Out on the street, however, no rules apply as Black men such as Abner Louima found out when cops in a precinct bathroom plunged a mop handle into his rectum in 1997 after beating and kicking him all over his body including his groin.
They then paraded around bragging about what they had done while waving the blood and feces stained stick in the air. Severely beaten, and with teeth missing, Louima spent two months in the hospital. All the charges leveled against him by the police department were found to be false. Five cops were convicted but only two served prison time.
Getting back to officer Vagnini, Police Chief Ed Flynn refused to investigate Vagninis reported reign of sexual terror for at least a couple of years which allowed it to continue; perhaps the chief approved of these actions? Remember that a cop was being accused of criminal activities for years by many of his victims and the Police Chief did nothing to protect these citizens, not even the children.
The climate in this community apparently supported terrorizing its Black citizens and Black tax-money was used to support it, as we found out: Prosecutors and the judge said Vagninis actions shocked the conscience of the community, but his own lawyer said the whole system was to blame for encouraging and rewarding Vagninis aggressive tactics, which he said were no secret within the department and the court system.
We all know by now that police always hide behind their badges often referred to as a shields. Along with laws designed to protect them from any type of prosecution including murder is the so called Blue Wall Of Silence created by the police and it is often used in addition. People sometimes say there are good cops some people say they have never met a good cop. I have met a few so-called good cops; and they were mostly female, but they are very, very rare.
To me, the police act like a criminal organization and must be treated as such. The same laws that are supposed to protect us from Organized Crime –the RICO Statutes among them– should be used to protect us from the police. But this will never happen as long as cops can shield each other from justice.
They all do this regardless of the crime they may have seen their fellow officers commit. This makes all of them accomplices and they are just as guilty as any other perpetrator. It is common knowledge in Black neighborhoods that you cant deal drugs without cops being a part of it.
I’ve learned this from drug dealers Ive known personally; one of whom is doing time right now as part of the strange deal he made with the police. Most likely, they are running the drug trades but the minimum involvement is that they are taking a cut of the money from it.
One advantage to being a senior citizen is that youve seen not just whats happening now, but what has happened before. I remember two of my peers making career decisions when we were all very much younger.
Both wanted to become police officers which was a shock to me, since we had all been abused by the police; but only one of them was accepted. The accepted one and myself were in a street gang the El Kovons in Red Hook, Brooklyn, back in the day.
He was the elected president but I didnt vote for him because I didnt like him. To me, he was a very flawed individual but I had to tolerate him. I kept my distance from him, which was a difficult thing to do. When he returned to the neighborhood after completing his training in the police academy, he was a worse person in my opinion and I felt that the training had made him more intolerable than before.
I also grew up with a violent bully in the gang who later became a drug dealer. He was very much easier to get along with.
Obviously, officers like Michael Vagnini are not new to me. But as my mother did when I complained to her about my treatment by police, people disregarded anything I said about cops. They usually just looked at me as if I hadnt said anything. My relationship with the cop I grew up with got worse as we got older.
He owed me for several favors that I had done for him when, among other things, he wanted to become an actor. He repaid me by trying to rape me at gunpoint while his brother police officers were destroying my photography business in 1975 because I politely refused to shave off my locks which I had before I started the business.
I was told that if I refused to comply, I would be forced out of business. I didnt realize that the force would be the police force.
Now that we are getting video tapes showing what the police do, some attitudes are starting to change. Black people in this country have always been under the gun held by Whites. There are sadistic Whites, supremacist, that have been eating our flesh for hundreds of years. All of them are not guilty; but there are not enough decent Whites yet to put an end to their barbarism.
In the well known movie Serpico, the only honest cop in the precinct, Frank Serpico, is shot in the face by criminals when his back-up cops set him up to be killed to protect their criminal activities. This seems to be how all precincts where the Blue Wall is in effect are operated.
Unless the precinct captain is in on it, he has no control of his precinct and neither does the police commissioner or the mayor. A secret criminal element well known within each precinct is in control and they run it. It seems to have always been this way; at least since Prohibition. They are so powerful that the entire city administration, more or less, had best mind their own business.
This is the only situation that fits the facts as we now see them. State or Federal intervention will be the only possible solution unless they too are afraid.
Serpico’s situation led to the creation of the Knapp Commission to investigate police corruption which seems to have led to some changes in the department. There is some difference today from back in the day; in terms of the types of corruption: Todays corruption is not the corruption of the Knapp Commission days. Corruption then was largely a corruption of accommodation, of criminals and police officers giving and taking bribes, buying and selling protection. Corruption was, in its essence, consensual. Todays corruption is characterized by brutality, theft, abuse of authority and active police criminality.
Only a public outcry in Milwaukee forced the administration to act against Vagnini and his crew. We must note that Vagninis four accomplices have been required to quit the police force.
But at least one of his assistant officers enjoyed a year of paid vacation before having to quit. Vagnini has been convicted but sentenced to only 26 months in jail.
He does not have to register as a sex offender which means that he can live on the border of or in Black neighborhoods and feast on the men and children there; and they dont have to be warned about his presence.
So I have some lingering questions. One of which is: In the field, how did police officer Michael Vagnini clean up after his many anal invasions? Did his buddies just accept the way he smelled afterward?
Please feel free to post your comments below.
