The Post & Email by Sharon Rondeau 1/2/2019
“WE HAVE A PROBLEM THAT AFFECTS THE WHOLE COUNTRYâ€On Monday The Post & Email interviewed Fergus Nolan, the author of the Memphis Truth Commission blog, launched in 2016 after Nolan was arrested following his participation in a peaceful public protest.
“I was filming the police; it was a bogus arrest,†Nolan told us, with the charge ultimately dismissed. “The cop never turned up in court to justify reasonable cause for the arrest. It was expunged, and everything is all gone away. But I took this very personally, so I started doing a police series looking into things the police were doing.â€
A retired IT specialist and legal immigrant from Ireland 32 years ago, Nolan said that the Memphis Police Department (MPD) is taking issue with citizens’ First Amendment rights by criminalizing free speech and protected activity. In an entry titled “Copwatch 1,†Nolan wrote that “MPD members seem to believe that they have a right to arbitrarily arrest members of the public who are not committing a crime, and then not attend the preliminary hearing to make the case go away.â€
He expounded on his arrest and that of a second protester, Maureen Spain, on May 30, 2016.
Nolan has recently covered in depth on his blog a federal lawsuit filed by two women falsely accused of participating in a conspiracy to move drugs and other contraband into a local penal institution, a case covered by The Post & Email beginning in late 2017. Celitria Watson and April Malone were informed that they were placed under surveillance with a legal warrant but also believe that the MPD’s Organized Crime Unit (OCU) used a “Stingray†device to capture their communications with Kendrick Watson, Celitria’s brother.
“Stingray is not just an eavesdropping device,†Nolan wrote on his blog. “It emulates a cell tower, and it has the capability of changing the cellphone signals. Stingray conducts a ‘man in the middle’ hacking attack on the phones it is tracking, obtaining the encryption key and instructing the phones to downgrade their security protocols. It can even be used to change the firmware on the device to hack the phone.â€
The text messages Celitira and April exchanged with Kendrick were altered to make it appear as if they were part of a drug operation. While the identities of those who altered the texts have not been revealed, Celitria Watson had proof of the alterations in the form of a Google backup to her email account of every text she sent from her phone.
In July 2017, both women were dropped from the case, which involved 14 other co-defendants. During an interview last summer, Celitria told us that she was convinced law enforcement’s focus was actually her brother.
April Malone is Kendrick Watson’s girlfriend. Kendrick Watson ultimately accepted a plea agreement sentencing him to 23 years in prison, although he, too, claims that evidence against him was “fabricated.â€
In his blog post on the Watson/Malone case, Nolan explained how he believes police went about altering the texts. He posted an interview with both women on YouTube and plans to follow their federal case to its conclusion. A January 30 court conference has been scheduled in the case, Nolan reported.
Nolan has also focused on what he says is corruption within the Memphis City Council and police activity involving fraudulent Facebook accounts, also reported by The Chattanooga Times Free Press last month. “In response to a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union in Tennessee, a white detective with the Memphis Police Department’s Office of Homeland Security testified earlier this year that he contacted hundreds of activists using a ‘Bob Smith’ Facebook profile where he posed as a person of color,†the paper reported on December 21.
More:
https://www.thepostemail.com/2019/01/02/memphis-blogger-activist-details-local-police-surveillance-successful-federal-lawsuit/
