Abuse of power? those days are almost over...

Story courtesy of Policelink

Councilman's Daughter :'I'll Have You fired'

The Baltimore Sun via YellowBrix

September 17, 2009

BALTIMORE, Md. — After days of public displays of profanity and abuse – in Congress, at the U.S. Open tennis championships, during the MTV Video Music Awards – news came Wednesday of another such incident closer to home.

Baltimore County police released details of the arrests of two women accused of dispensing an obscenity-laden tirade against a police officer who pulled them over Monday night in Randallstown after noting that a rear light on their car was not working.

The driver, Kelli Dorschell Oliver, 40 – whose father, Baltimore County Councilman Kenneth N. Oliver, pleaded guilty in July to two counts of campaign fund violations – was charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and second-degree assault after the police officer reported that she had bitten, scratched and kicked him as he tried to place her in handcuffs.

The passenger was Talaya R. Kirkland, 22 – Kelli Oliver’s niece and the councilman’s granddaughter – who was charged with obstruction and disorderly conduct for her role in the confrontation near her Greens Lane home.
Reached by telephone Wednesday night, Kelli Oliver would not comment on the arrest and referred questions to her attorney, whom she would not name. Kirkland could not be reached.

The officer, Gregory Graves, wrote in a report that as he approached the women in the Mitsubishi he was “immediately met with yelling and attitude over the traffic stop from both the driver and passenger.” Kirkland, he wrote, called him a “pig,” using an expletive as an adjective, and things escalated from there.
“Oliver exploded in anger, and said she wanted my badge number and supervisor’s name,” Graves wrote. “She stated she would have me fired in the morning.”

Kirkland took up that line, telling the officer “she is a relative of County Councilman Kenneth Oliver, and that he would get me fired,” the report said.

As Graves and another officer attempted to cuff Oliver, “she began kicking, scratching, screaming, and kicked my shin,” Graves reported.

The fracas became a public spectacle, the officer observed, in that “numerous vehicles were stopping on Old Court Road to witness the events.”

Even after being cuffed, Graves said, Oliver “refused to get up, and we had to carry her to a police vehicle.” The officer said he suffered “multiple injuries” in the melee and that Oliver was also injured.

Both women were freed on bail and are to appear before a judge on Nov. 18.