From the website of Signal, a free-to-the-user, end-to-end encryption app. https://signal.org/en/. Great news for private citizens and companies. Complete thwarting of FOIA laws when used by the Michigan State Police. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/01/22/state-police-phone-apps-keep-text-messages-secret/4236305001. I posted about this last week. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/01/22/state-police-phone-apps-keep-text-messages-secret/4236305001.
This certainly did not surprise me. After Marney Keenan’s book came out last July, Detective Sean Street stopped responding to my emails. I kept my emails infrequent and only passed on information I felt could be important. After promising he would get back with me after a vacation and a heavy court schedule, the guy went dark. I emailed him and pressed him for a response. He called me and left a message saying he “didn’t understand” my email. Trust me, it was quite clear. I knew he was calling so that there would be no paper trail. So I sent him this email.
I don’t have a problem with phone calls from law enforcement, especially since I installed the TapeACall app. As I said in my email, I would have returned his call but for the fact that the message was pathetic and I knew what he was doing.
So the MSP gets busted using Signal. I know others in Oakland County LE attempted to destroy relevant records and also played the “shell game” with other agencies so they could respond “Hey, no records here!” Who pulls this shit? Someone with something to hide. And someone who doesn’t care that transparency is the gold standard for public agencies and is used to playing dirty. “Open investigation”? You mean like the “open investigation” the MSP handed over to author Mardi Link?
https://catherinebroad.blog/2018/10/; https://catherinebroad.blog/2014/01/20/someone-should-write-a-book/comment-page-1/.
And from 2013, failure to address the obvious intensifies the suspicion. https://catherinebroad.blog/2013/04/15/failure-to-address-the-obvious-intensifies-suspicion-when-in-doubt-accuse-the-victims-of-disrupting-the-investigation-and-of-rank-disrespect/.
Why would high ups at the MSP, who know better, install an encryption app on their phones? Failure to address the obvious intensifies the suspicion. And here’s another big problem. The Oakland County Prosecutor webpage continues to carry the admonition Jessica Cooper loved to trot out: The prosecutor is not an investigative agency, so please contact the Michigan State Police or the Oakland County Sheriff.
The OC prosecutor’s office has always had investigators. In fact, it was an investigator for the Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, Inspector Cory Williams, who moved the foot ball from the 10 yard line to the 90 yard line in the OCCK case before retiring. Call the MSP or Sheriff Mike Bouchard’s office? You have got to be fucking kidding me.
Cathy, you are HEROIC!!!
After all the stonewalling & BS from the MSP, you still are able to find the strength to fight.
KUDOS Girl!
Here, here!
Of course, Lori Hinkley, who also heads up FOIA Appeals, was using Signal. This is outrageous.
No integrity. Whatsoever.
Jesus…this state. Institutional Bullshit, like no other. NEEDS to be rooted out.
Yes. It will not be good enough to get a DNA hit on one of the monsters involved in this. It will require a lot of investigative work if they ever get a DNA hit to find out who was in “the circle.” It won’t be “case closed, it’s X,” and this is because it is so stunningly obvious how dirty the MSP, L. Brooks Patterson and Jessica Cooper’s offices were, as well as Birmingham and Berkley PD. There must be an accounting.
Cathy, wondering if you saw this follow up in the Freep
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/02/03/msp-director-gasper-testify-text-message-encryption-signal/4369334001/?utm_campaign=snd-autopilot
Thank you, t!
I wonder if somewhere deep in the bowels of the MSP are some sort of records that indicate pressure was placed on the MSP’s polygraph pro, Ralph Cabot, back in January of 1977. We all know that the polygraph he administered to Green and Busch should have indicated deception, and therefore, they should have been held.
Instead they were released on the basis of Cabot’s dubious say-so.
But surely Cabot didn’t reach that conclusion on his own, right?
Personally I would bet money he was directed to do so. It’s unlikely that any higher-ups in the MSP were stupid enough to put it in writing in 1977, but somehow, one of Cabot’s superiors gave him the message: “these guys are to be released.”
I don’t suppose Ralph Cabot is still with us, is he?
Even if he is not, examining Cabot’s career after January 1977 may prove useful – if he was not reprimanded or disciplined in any way that would be an indication that his superiors didn’t hold him responsible for that screwed up polygraph.
If he was regularly promoted after that, that would be a powerful sign that he had followed orders and kept his mouth shut.
While he would never have spilled the beans to an outsider, it’s conceivable to me he might have said something privately to his family.
If Michigan AG Dana Nessel ever does her job and reopens this case with real investigators, tracking down the internal Michigan State Police pressure on MSP Sgt. Ralph Cabot to fumble that polygraph would be place to start.