THE "GOOD GUY" BAGS HIMSELF -

                                                                                               dean  HARPER

 OF THE MERIDIAN, MISSISSIPPI POLICE DEPARTMENT

 (EDITOR’S NOTE: During the time this story was being made ready for the website, Lt. Dean Harper was promoted to Captain. We find this very interesting. When Dean Harper was talking to the victims and doing what he could to help, he was telling the victims that he was being “exiled” by his superiors (being put in a tiny office in the back, given a failing grade on a test which he had always passed with flying colors in the past, etc.) 

All of a sudden, Dean Harper was promoted to Captain and has basically stopped talking to/helping the victims. Isn’t that interesting? Looks like another example of the use of some of the 25 tactics (see 25 DISGUSTING TACTICS USED BY CORRUPT GOVERNMENT UNKNOWN TO THE AVERAGE CITIZEN)…the bad guys either threaten (see tactics #5 and # 8) or pay off the ones who are trying to be “good guys”(tactic #24). 

Although he has been promoted to Captain, Dean Harper will be referred to as Lt. Harper throughout this article because he was still a lieutenant at the time these things took place.) 

Lucinda Johnson asked Lt. Harper a few weeks ago what is going on with the complaint against Detective Havard (which was filed over five months ago*).  Lt. Harper said that the chief has had it for two months.  The next time Lucinda Johnson saw Chief Dubose (May 19, 2009, outside the city council meeting) she asked him about it.  Chief Dubose referred her back to Lt. Harper saying, “You mean ‘Deano’ didn’t already tell you?” 

Ms. Johnson called Lt. Harper and he told her that he couldn’t tell her anything unless the chief said it was okay.  (Ms. Johnson has said that she feels like a ping pong ball sometimes as these people go back and forth and back and forth—pawning the responsibility off on each other.)   She told Lt. Harper that the chief had referred her to him, and had acted like Lt. Harper should have already told her. Lt. Harper said that he would call the chief and ask him if it was okay to give out information to her.  (For the record, Ms. Johnson is the one who filed the complaint on behalf of the church…why all the secrecy, since she is the one who filed the complaint?) Lt. Harper called her back later and told her the chief told him it was okay to tell her about the contact he had made. 

Lt. Harper said that he contacted Joshua Powell, son of Pastor Adelia Spencer.  (She is the one who allegedly gave the order to “torch” Christ’s Church In Action’s building at 518 41^st Avenue, Meridian, Mississippi. If you have not already read the first six items to the top left of the home page on this website, I would suggest that you do so to familiarize yourself with all the particulars in this case.) 

Joshua Powell is one witness who was most easily accessible to police in the aftermath of the crime, and who had extremely valuable, personally witnessed knowledge of the perpetrators and who was willing to testify.  Now, six years later, Lt. Harper’s version of the story is that Joshua Powell told him that he (Joshua) had been contacted in the past by two detectives, and that supposedly Joshua told them that he wouldn’t talk about anything or sign anything because what he had to say was “hearsay,” and that he wouldn’t testify to anything because it was “hearsay.”

 Isn’t this interesting? Joshua Powell is contacted six years after the fact…and this is ONLY after extreme perseverance on the part of Christ’s Church In Action’s (CCIA’s) pastor and due to actions that he and others have taken over the years.  This includes the action of setting up this website that I, Berachot Levine, along with The Arm of Justice, took to expose the fact that the proper government and law enforcement agencies in Mississippi did not do anything about the lack of proper investigation and the denial of equal protection under the law for CCIA. 

 Points to be made:                       

o       First of all, if this supposed contact with Joshua Powell done by two detectives was done within the time frame of the so-called police investigation of the arson, then why wasn’t this in the police report? If you read the police report, you will see that the time frame of the report ends in April of 2005, when Detective Havard asks that the case be closed. (See Police Report-arson --pages 7 and 8.)

o       Also, the question still remains, why wasn’t Joshua Powell, a key witness, interviewed in the immediate aftermath of the arson (June 8, 2003), when he was easily accessible to the police, due to the fact that he was living at the parsonage of Christ’s Church In Action at 4015 Paulding Street (whose yard is adjacent to that of the burned building), for 5 weeks after the arson?  (See POLICE FRAUD & DECEPTION, PART I: Details of Methodology of Mayor-directed, Police Chief-effected, Council-allowed Cover up Revealed!)

o       When Lucinda Johnson asked Lieutenant Harper when these detectives supposedly contacted Joshua Powell, he didn’t know.  (Shouldn’t there be a record of this in an investigation of a church arson?) Lt. Harper said that he had asked Joshua Powell when it was, and Joshua didn’t know, but said that it was a number of years ago.  (Why is there no record of this supposed contact by police detectives? Why would a police investigator expect that a witness should know when this was? Shouldn’t the police be keeping proper records?) 

It is obvious to us here at The Arm of Justice that, if indeed Joshua Powell was contacted, the same tactic was used on Joshua Powell that was used on others who tried to come forward and tell the truth—he was threatened.** 

This is a common tactic of the bad guys. Here are three examples of situations where names were given to authorities, and in which these people were subsequently threatened and changed their stories (or have not come forward and spoken up due to fear): 

o       Bill Watson.  He is the one who, voluntarily, on his own, visited the victims and told them, “The reason you’re not getting help ‘downtown’ (with the arson investigation) is that ‘big money’ changed hands.” He subsequently changed his story and the victims could hear Ken Storms (Meridian, Mississippi’s Chief Administrative Officer) in the background as Mr. Watson denied saying this.

o       Tim Miller.  He was battalion chief at the time of the fire and shortly thereafter became Fire Chief.   As Fire Chief, he tried to assist the victims by calling in “the feds” (ATF) because the victims were not getting any help locally from the police. Unfortunately, the ATF lied and said that they couldn’t do anything about arson but only could deal with firearms or explosives.

(Subsequently, Tim Miller told the victims that he was afraid to lose everything he had by coming forward and telling the truth.   He told the victims that not only was he threatened but that it was the Mayor himself, John Robert Smith, who “tore him up.”)

o       Vince Vincent.  He was the Meridian Fire Department Investigation Specialist at the time of the arson, but has since left the city employ, and he has also told the victims also that he is afraid to speak up because he could lose everything.  (He said that he knows what they could do to him because he has seen it done to others.) His family has also made statements to this effect to the victims. 

This is one of the tactics the bad guys use—they threaten anyone who would come forward and tell the truth. If these “detectives” were on the “up and up,” why is there no record of this supposed contact with two detectives?  We think that, if they indeed did talk to Joshua Powell, that they are the ones who told Joshua that what he had to say could not be used because it is hearsay.  That is ridiculous; the things that Joshua Powell told the victims were not hearsay.  He was a witness to statements made by actual people who committed actual crimes in this case, including talking to one of the arsonists himself.  Joshua Powell was obviously threatened in some way.

Joshua Powell is the one who said that he was willing to testify to anything and everything he knew and was willing to bring down his own mother for her criminal acts.  He had first-hand knowledge of the illegal things that went on at New Beginnings Church and of their numerous violations of law, and, as I said before, he spoke with one of the arsonists and was willing to tell what he knew. 

Also, why is Lt. Harper talking to Joshua Powell, who is living in another state, as opposed to talking to the very people who live right there in Meridian, Mississippi and who have first hand knowledge of what went on with the arson, such as Vince Vincent?  As I said before, Vincent was the Meridian Fire Department Investigation Specialist at the time of the arson who has since left the employment of the City of Meridian.  He has stated to the victims that it was because he couldn’t deal with the corruption anymore. 

And why isn’t Lt. Harper talking to Tim Miller, who was battalion chief and present at the fire scene of the arson, and who became Fire Chief shortly thereafter, only to leave less than two years later to work in a sporting goods store in Meridian? By the way, both of these men, from what I understand, are easily accessible by telephone, and Lt. Harper could visit Tim Miller where he works because the location is, from what I understand, only a few streets away from the Meridian Police Station! 

Lt. Harper, when asked by Lucinda Johnson if he had talked to Vince Vincent, said no, and when asked why, said that the chief hadn’t told him to.  When she asked him why he didn’t just take the initiative to call him on his own, he said that he only does what the chief tells him to do, and the chief didn’t tell him to do that. 

I would think that a good investigator might approach the chief and ask if he could call some of the principal witnesses in the case…but then again, Lt. Harper is not in a position to do an honest job.  Here we have the chief investigator for Internal Affairs of the Meridian Police, and he won’t take the initiative to call the people he should, who are right there under his nose in Meridian. He won’t call these people who worked for the city and who know the truth, or any others who have valuable information, to get to the bottom of all of this. (When Ms. Johnson made this point clear to Lt. Harper, he became angry and hung up on her.) 

It is obvious that he cannot do this because he works for the government under the mayor, John Robert Smith, and so Lt. Harper just is not in the position to be able to do so.  Oh, he could, but it would take courage. Real courage.

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PLEASE NOTE: You may be wondering why I am mentioning names of the people who have been threatened. LET ME STATE THAT THIS IS FOR THEIR PROTECTION.   If anything happens to them, we will know that it was John Robert Smith and the boys who did it or had it done (which is the same thing).  The bad guys are the ones who say, “Keep your mouth shut.”  We are the ones who say, “We need to speak up and speak out. Our silence is what enables them to get away with what they have done for so long.”

* See POLICE FRAUD & DECEPTION, PART I: Details of Methodology of Mayor-directed, Police Chief-effected, Council-allowed Cover up Revealed!,POLICE FRAUD & DECEPTION , PART 2, and POLICE FRAUD & DECEPTION, PART 3.

** It is not surprising, in light of these facts, that Pastor Demers was warned by Jesse Palmer about the threat of death due to the fact that the arson was not successful in getting Pastor Demers to leave town. (See QUOTE(S) OF THE WEEK!—"Another Quotable Person," for Councilman Palmer’s words  His quotes are on page 3 of QUOTE(S) OF THE WEEK! (Click on each quote title to see entire quote).)