Content warning: The story discusses childhood sexual abuse.
In Polk County, Florida, where its sheriff has said his department will “go to the ends of the earth” to arrest child predators, one child victim was left wondering how she ended up on the other side of the law.
Taylor Cadle was 12 years old when she disclosed to a trusted adult that her adoptive father had been sexually abusing her since she was 9. Law enforcement was quick to respond, and almost just as quick to suspect that Taylor had made up the allegations. The lead detective, Melissa Turnage, began to question Taylor aggressively, even threatening her with returning to foster care if she continued with her allegations.
“I told her time and time and time and time again that I am not the liar here,” Taylor said of the detective.
Despite Taylor’s pleas, Turnage eventually sought criminal charges against her for lying to police.
For the Emmy-winning Center for Investigative Reporting and Netflix documentary Victim/Suspect, I found hundreds of others nationwide who, like Taylor, began as alleged victims reporting sexual assaults to police, and ended up criminal suspects. My reporting uncovered shocking police missteps in several of those investigations. All of those alleged victims remain adamant that their reports were truthful.
In a surprising development in her case, Taylor vindicated herself. With our partner PBS News Hour, I went to Polk County to meet her—and hear how she finally put her abuser in prison.
When New York’s Nassau County signed the first county-level mask ban into law in August, its deputy police commissioner, Kevin Smith, told local news that training was “being conducted [in] the department, which means across ranks.”
But that has not happened, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union. Through an information request reviewed by Mother Jones, NYCLU, a state affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, requested policies and training materials used to instruct the county’s police on enforcing the ban. In return, the group received a three-page legal bulletin on the “Mask Transparency Act,” and a six-slide presentation, including a title page, briefly going over the new law. The presentation reiterates the bulletin’s explanation of the law, as well as saying police officers still need to follow Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure—but there is little else.
“There’s none of the sort of type of training and guardrails you would expect to see in a police procedure or in a training module around how you interact with members of the public,” said Beth Haroules, a senior staff attorney at NYCLU.
The very brief materials also do not address people’s rights in protecting their health information from police, which also underscores why police officers cannot independently determine whether someone is wearing a mask for health reasons. “You’re not allowed to interrogate somebody about their private health information, or family member’s or loved one’s health information,” Haroules continued, “including whether or not you’re just Covid cautious,” something county law enforcement seems to have overlooked altogether.
The Nassau County Police Department did not respond to Mother Jones’ request for comment on the extent of its training.
The law allows Nassau County police four reasons to question people about their mask-wearing—among them, when they are gathered in a public space with other people who are wearing masks. Haroules notes that this seems to clearly target people at protests, especially recent waves of pro-Palestinian protests, some of whom may be wearing masks for health reasons—but the implications for who the ban could suddenly impact would be much wider.
“You could be waiting at a bus stop at Nassau County with a mask on, and then, suddenly, three or four more people show up,” Haroules said. “You’re all subject to arrest or interrogation as to whether or not you have a right to wear that mask.”
As Mother Jones previously reported, fear of being interrogated by police over masking has led Disability Rights New York to sue Nassau County in federal court on behalf of two disabled residents.
Since the mask ban law was enacted, two people have been charged with misdemeanors for violating it, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. In both cases, Haroules says, “there probably wasn’t probable cause to arrest either gentleman.”
Haroules agrees with concerns that people of color will be disproportionately targeted for wearing masks. The Nassau County Police Department, Haroules says, “has a documented history of inappropriate interactions with people of color.” (It also has a troubled record on other fronts, including around residents’ civil rights.)
Choosing to wear masks, as Haroules told Mother Jones she herself continues to do on public transportation, is an individual decision which mask bans threaten. Having other community members “enforcing the mask ban by threatening to call police,” Haroules says, “really suggests that there’s a societal problem.”
More than four years after Kentucky police barged into Breonna Taylor’s home in the middle of the night and shot her to death, her family is still fighting for justice. And this week, a federal judge dealt them a major blow.
On Thursday, US District Judge Charles Simpson, a Ronald Reagan appointee, dismissed felony charges against two of the former Louisville officers involved in the police raid that led to Taylor’s death. Instead, the judge ruled that Taylor’s boyfriend was legally responsible for her death. The officers still face other charges.
Former Detective Joshua Jaynes and former Sgt. Kyle Meany were not present at the raid on Taylor’s home in March 2020, but they allegedly lied to obtain a warrant for other officers to enter in search of drugs. Taylor, a Black 26-year-old medical worker, had fallen asleep watching the movie Freedom Writers when, a little after midnight, seven plainclothes police barged through her door. Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, thinking the officers were intruders, fired a single shot, and the officers returned with a barrage of bullets that struck Taylor. As she lay wounded, Walker called 911, still not realizing it was the police who had attacked them.
In 2022 the Justice Department filed civil rights charges against four current and former officers who were involved in her death, including Jaynes and Meany. Not long afterward I was writing a profile of Taylor’s aunt, Bianca Austin, who told me that the family felt relieved about the prosecutions. “I was just so happy,” Austin said of the indictments. “I’m just grateful the DOJ decided to do their job, that somebody decided to step up and say, ‘This is not right.'”
Within a few weeks of the charges, one of the four officers, Kelly Goodlett, pleaded guilty. Goodlett said she and her colleagues lied to obtain the warrant by claiming to have evidence they didn’t have. More specifically, she said she did not stop Jaynes when he falsely claimed to have proof that a drug dealer was sending packages to Taylor’s apartment. According to prosecutors, the warrant application also stated that the dealer used Taylor’s address as his own, even though the detectives knew the dealer did not live there. No drugs were found on the premises.
The lies allegedly continued later. News of Taylor’s death sparked widespread outrage. Thousands protested. As public backlash grew, according to prosecutors, Goodlett and Jaynes met in Jaynes’ garage to scheme how they could cover up the false statements they had made. And according to prosecutors, Meany allegedly lied to the FBI.
The two cops who actually shot Taylor—Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove—were never charged. Prosecutors said they did not know their colleagues had lied to obtain the warrant. Instead, the Justice Department blamed the four other officers for Taylor’s death. But on Thursday, Judge Simpson disagreed. “While the indictment alleges that Jaynes and Meany set off a series of events that ended in Taylor’s death, it also alleges that [Taylor’s boyfriend, Walker] disrupted those events when he decided to open fire” on the police, Simpson wrote. Walker’s “decision to open fire,” he added, “is the legal cause of her death.”
The ruling effectively reduced some of the felony charges against Jaynes and Meany, which had carried a maximum sentence of life in prison, to misdemeanors. But officers are not totally off the hook: The judge refused to dismiss a charge against Jaynes for conspiracy and a charge against Meany for lying to the FBI. Goodlett, who pleaded guilty to federal charges, is expected to testify against them at their trials. A fourth former officer, Brett Hankison, also faces a retrial for federal charges in October.
Taylor’s family said prosecutors plan to appeal this week’s ruling. “Obviously we are devastated,” the family wrote in a statement to the Associated Press. “The only thing we can do at this point is continue to be patient…we will continue to fight until we get full justice for Breonna Taylor.”
As the 2024 Democratic National Convention kicked off Monday in Chicago, thousands of protestors took to the city’s streets to demand an end to Democratic politicians’ support for Israel’s war in Gaza, where the death toll reached 40,000 late last week, and where United Nations experts have announced widespread starvation.
Two separate protests were planned and organized months in advance, one by the Coalition to March on the DNC, composed of hundreds of local and national organizations including the Palestinian Youth Movement, Black Lives Matter Chicago, and Jewish Voice for Peace.
A concurrent march organized by the Poor People’s Army, a Philadelphia-based anti-poverty organization, was not allowed to complete its permitted route, which ended in front of the United Center, where the convention is being held. Co-founder Cheri Honkala was arrested as she tried to pass a police line to serve the convention a “citizens’ arrest warrant,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Honkala was arrested in July for a similar attempt at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Though largely peaceful, protests did become contentious when smaller groups of activists, separated from the larger rally by informal “peace officers” working with the main protest organizers, broke off from the planned route. Dozens of people breached the security perimeter surrounding the United Center at a nearby park on the route, after which the Chicago Police Department deployed at least a hundred armed officers in riot gear to block gaps in the fencing.
Protestors chanted slogans including “No justice, no peace” and “the whole world is watching.”
At tense moments, some protestors who broke off from the main march taunted police by throwing signs: a few helmeted officers climbed an exterior fence, appearing to yell at protestors on the other side and eventually arresting at least twelve.
The National Lawyers Guild’s Chicago chapter condemned police handling of the arrests, which hospitalized one protester, it alleged.
“The response by Chicago police to First Amendment–protected activity we’ve seen so far is extremely intimidating for people wanting to speak out at this crucial time,” NLG member Amanda Yarusso said in a press release.
Videos posted to social media by local journalists showed protestors surrounded and manhandled by police. When a police line formed, Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling was spotted by a Sun-Times reporter.
There were some small skirmishes that lasted about 30 minutes in all. Around 100-150 people broke through the first security perimeter then were forced back out by Chicago police.
— Nader Issa (@NaderDIssa) August 19, 2024
Supt. Larry Snelling was at the front of the police line the entire time. pic.twitter.com/zevbNYukjw
riot cops kettled protesters from both sides of washington street, mostly forcing people back through the fence. i saw at least three arrests and a camera man got knocked off the wall. pic.twitter.com/AOWjOFVTzn
— shawn (@shawndmulcahy) August 19, 2024
Around 7 p.m. local time, an eight-tent, unannounced encampment was set up in Union Park, about half a mile from the United Center. The park hosted a rally earlier in the day in which thousands of protestors gathered for the March on the DNC, though the small group setting up the encampment was not affiliated with that event.
Hello! I’m covering the DNC protests for @MotherJones, I’m currently in union park where a small encampment has popped up after the March on the DNC protest today. Cops walked straight for tents but now are stopped as protestors surround them. pic.twitter.com/mw0lWkGWBr
— Siri (@schilukuri1) August 19, 2024
But an initial grouping of several dozen police officers soon arrived and headed directly for the tents, entering one—only to retreat soon after protestors surrounded them, chanting, and erected a ninth tent.
Once hundreds of officers had streamed into the park, the modest encampment was ordered to disperse, and protesters dismantled and removed their tents. As the sun set, the few remaining protestors packed up and left.
A second day of action is set for Thursday, the convention’s final day.
As the 2024 Democratic National Convention kicked off Monday in Chicago, thousands of protestors took to the city’s streets to demand an end to Democratic politicians’ support for Israel’s war in Gaza, where the death toll reached 40,000 late last week, and where United Nations experts have announced widespread starvation.
Two separate protests were planned and organized months in advance, one by the Coalition to March on the DNC, composed of hundreds of local and national organizations including the Palestinian Youth Movement, Black Lives Matter Chicago, and Jewish Voice for Peace.
A concurrent march organized by the Poor People’s Army, a Philadelphia-based anti-poverty organization, was not allowed to complete its permitted route, which ended in front of the United Center, where the convention is being held. Co-founder Cheri Honkala was arrested as she tried to pass a police line to serve the convention a “citizens’ arrest warrant,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Honkala was arrested in July for a similar attempt at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Though largely peaceful, protests did become contentious when smaller groups of activists, separated from the larger rally by informal “peace officers” working with the main protest organizers, broke off from the planned route. Dozens of people breached the security perimeter surrounding the United Center at a nearby park on the route, after which the Chicago Police Department deployed at least a hundred armed officers in riot gear to block gaps in the fencing.
Protestors chanted slogans including “No justice, no peace” and “the whole world is watching.”
At tense moments, some protestors who broke off from the main march taunted police by throwing signs: a few helmeted officers climbed an exterior fence, appearing to yell at protestors on the other side and eventually arresting at least twelve.
The National Lawyers Guild’s Chicago chapter condemned police handling of the arrests, which hospitalized one protester, it alleged.
“The response by Chicago police to First Amendment–protected activity we’ve seen so far is extremely intimidating for people wanting to speak out at this crucial time,” NLG member Amanda Yarusso said in a press release.
Videos posted to social media by local journalists showed protestors surrounded and manhandled by police. When a police line formed, Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling was spotted by a Sun-Times reporter.
There were some small skirmishes that lasted about 30 minutes in all. Around 100-150 people broke through the first security perimeter then were forced back out by Chicago police.
— Nader Issa (@NaderDIssa) August 19, 2024
Supt. Larry Snelling was at the front of the police line the entire time. pic.twitter.com/zevbNYukjw
riot cops kettled protesters from both sides of washington street, mostly forcing people back through the fence. i saw at least three arrests and a camera man got knocked off the wall. pic.twitter.com/AOWjOFVTzn
— shawn (@shawndmulcahy) August 19, 2024
Around 7 p.m. local time, an eight-tent, unannounced encampment was set up in Union Park, about half a mile from the United Center. The park hosted a rally earlier in the day in which thousands of protestors gathered for the March on the DNC, though the small group setting up the encampment was not affiliated with that event.
Hello! I’m covering the DNC protests for @MotherJones, I’m currently in union park where a small encampment has popped up after the March on the DNC protest today. Cops walked straight for tents but now are stopped as protestors surround them. pic.twitter.com/mw0lWkGWBr
— Siri (@schilukuri1) August 19, 2024
But an initial grouping of several dozen police officers soon arrived and headed directly for the tents, entering one—only to retreat soon after protestors surrounded them, chanting, and erected a ninth tent.
Once hundreds of officers had streamed into the park, the modest encampment was ordered to disperse, and protesters dismantled and removed their tents. As the sun set, the few remaining protestors packed up and left.
A second day of action is set for Thursday, the convention’s final day.
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