Gynnya McMillen is dead because "she refused to remove her hoodie for a pat down search and photograph."
Gynnya McMillen via Justice for Gynnya McMillen Facebook Page
By Tom Boggioni
A staffer working at a Kentucky juvenile detention center used a martial arts hold on 16-year-old Gynnya McMillen hours before she was found dead in her cell, reports CBS.
According to a spokesperson for the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice, the teen refused to remove her sweatshirt for a pat down search and to have her booking photo taken, leading a staffer to use an “Aikido restraint” on her in order to get her to comply.
HEAR THE AUDIO: Kentucky Jail Staffers Waited 11 Minutes to Begin CPR After Teen Who Was Restrained With Martial Arts Move Found Dead
“The staff performed an Aikido restraint hold to safely conduct a pat-down search and remove the youth’s hoodie,” spokesperson Stacy Floden stated. “The purpose of having multiple staff involved in a controlled restraint is to ensure the safety of the youth and staff.”
McMillen was found dead in her cell at the Lincoln Village Juvenile Detention Center on Jan. 11, after officials failed to check on her well-being throughout the night.
According to center policy, juvenile detainees in isolation cells must be checked on every 15 minutes by staffers.
On Thursday, Reginald Windham, a 10-year veteran of the juvenile justice department, was placed on administrative leave for failing to check on the teen.
According to the Kentucky Center for Investigative reporting, McMillen’s cold lifeless body was discovered “in a sleeping position” in a “secure” room at 9:55 a.m., after failing to respond to twice earlier when asked if she wanted to eat.
Despite her lack of communication, staffers never entered her cell to check on her.
According to the Hardin County coroner there were no obvious signs of trauma or a drug overdose, and that a toxicology report is still pending and could take two more weeks.
Juvenile justice expert Michele Deitch criticized the use of martial arts on the teen.
“I’ve never heard that phrase used in the context of a corrections setting,” Deitch said, adding refusal to remove a sweatshirt is not acceptable grounds for restraint.
"Officer" Jason Van Dyke helped another cop cover up a 16-bullet execution - Guess he figured it was his turn.
By International Business Times
Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago police officer charged with murder in the 2014 fatal shooting of a black teen, may have also played a role in an alleged cover-up of another fatal police shooting a decade ago, court records in an open civil lawsuit against the city revealed. Van Dyke acknowledged in a deposition that he copied the work of fellow officers at the scene of the 2005 shooting of Emmanuel Lopez, making his official report match theirs without conducting his own witness interviews, the Chicago Tribune reported Thursday.
Van Dyke’s role in the Lopez case had been seen as relatively minor, but it is being eyed closer given the striking similarities to the 2014 shooting of Laquan McDonald. The Lopez family’s lawsuit, which goes to trial in February, alleges that Chicago police shot the 23-year-old Hispanic janitor 16 times without cause and then made up a story that the man tried to run over an officer with his car, according to the Tribune.
Every time an unarmed person is killed or abused by a cop the police department and corporate media rush to publicize the victim's history. If the victim was ever arrested, it's publicized. If the victim ever posted photos on social media holding a gun, it's publicized. If the victim was ever suspended from school, it's publicized. If the victim has any drugs in his or her system, its publicized. Yet the killer cop is never subjected to breathalyzer or drug tests. The following articles demonstrate that cops may well be killing and brutalizing people drunk and/or drugged while on duty. All police officers must be tested for blood levels of alcohol and drugs whenever they are involved in violent incidents.
Compiled by Ronald David Jackson
NYPD Officer John Finley
was charged with drunken driving after he crashed into a guardrail in
Staten Island and officers found his blood alcohol level to be .430%,
more than five times the legal limit, officials said.
NYPD officer with blood alcohol level 5 times the legal limit charged with drunken driving
By Thomas Tracy
A veteran NYPD highway cop found himself on the other side of the law after crashing his SUV and registering a blood alcohol content more than five times the legal limit of .08%, authorities said Saturday.
Police Officer John Finley, 45, along with the rest of the department, is tasked with putting the brakes on traffic accidents and drunken drivers as part of the city’s Vision Zero initiative.
But those lofty goals were chucked out his passenger-side window when his blood-alcohol level landed at a mind-boggling .43% during the Aug. 8 crash on Staten Island, stunned officials said.
“At that level of toxicity he shouldn’t have been walking, let alone driving," a law enforcement source said.
The pie-eyed patrolman was alone in his 2009 GMC Envoy when he rammed the SUV into a guardrail on the West Shore Expressway near Meredith Ave. in Travis about 10:15 a.m. that Saturday — three days before his 45th birthday, police sources said.
A bottle of Georgi Vodka was found inside the SUV, officials said.
Finley — who has been on the job since October 1990 — was so drunk that he was “unintelligible in speech,” according to court documents.
Cop Runs Stop Sign, Hits Sober Driver, NYPD Covers it Up By Framing the Man For DUI
Oliver Wiggin's (left) attorney, Scott Rynecki, shows a photo of the smashed police car to the media. Wiggins was
framed for DUI because the NYPD was trying to cover up for a cop who was driving a patrol car while drunk.
By Mike Sawyer
On April 19, Oliver Wiggins was driving his Nissan Maxima on Glenwood road when he was suddenly t-boned by an NYPD cop. The officer was driving without his flashing lights and did not have on his siren when he blew through a stop sign and plowed into Wiggins.
In typical police fashion, the officer, instead of apologizing and admitting he made a mistake, treated Wiggins as if it were his fault. The officer accused Wiggins of being drunk. He was then arrested and charged with DUI.
Wiggins, knowing full well that he wasn’t drinking, submitted to a blood test. The results showed his blood alcohol content to be zero. The test also showed that there were no traces of drugs in his system either.
Wiggins has since hired an attorney who is requesting an investigation into the incident.
“We believe this arrest was improper and solely motivated to cover up the actions of the police officers in failing to yield at a stop sign,” said lawyer Scott Rynecki.
Despite the negative blood tests, the charges were not dropped until last week.
“I think the whole thing was insane,” Wiggins told the Daily News. “They ran a stop sign and I think they were trying to hide that they caused the accident.”
“I have never been in handcuffs in my life,” Wiggins said. “I’ve lost my trust in police. It’s scary they can frame an innocent person.”
Drunk Cop Fires Gun Inside Boyfriend's Patrol Car—On Video
By Maureen O'Connor
Dallas' Police Department released a video of 27-year-old Officer Kelly Beemer getting dragged out of a bar, and another one of Beemer screaming, whipping out her gun, and firing it into the floor of her cop boyfriend's patrol car.
The Dallas Police Department presumably released the footage to cover its ass for when they fire Beemer, because this dashboard camera footage is testament to why she should never be allowed to have a gun, again. In the first video, on-duty cops Miguel Jamaica and Zachary Helm (who is Kelly's boyfriend) drag their sloppy drunk colleague out of Lee Havey's bar in a tank top and jeans, her head lolling from side to side as she moans in drunken horror, "I can't believe you would do this to me, Jamaica."
In the second video, Kelly's voice is steadier. As Helm drives her home, she announces, "I swear to God, you need to fucking stop now. I fucking swear to god, Zach." There is a clattering noise, then Officer Helm's voice: "Oh, shit! Fuck! Kelly, please drop the gun!" The gun goes off and the car sits at a red light as Jamaica apparently gets out of his car and to assist Helm, their voices chiming together, "DROP THE GUN, KELLY! DROP THE GUN!"
Citizen Pulls Over Drunken Cop, Locks Him in his Own Cruiser
By Matt Agorist
Meet Russell George. Russell was driving Stott Street one Sunday night last year, when he noticed a police van driving fast and recklessly.
The van was swerving and turned into oncoming traffic.
“At this point I was concerned about the safety of other road users,” self-employed George told The Witness.
“He suddenly jammed on his brakes and came to a complete stop.”
“I got out of my car and went towards him and I asked him if he knew what he was doing. He started his car and carried on driving,” he said.
Continuing to drive recklessly, the policeman turned into Logan Road and came to a stop at the Howard Road intersection.
George decided it would be best to call the police. He was told the police would be there shortly.
“After five minutes, no one had arrived. So I jumped out of my car and I approached the driver’s side and asked him to come out. He looked at me and I could smell that he had been drinking.
“I asked him again, and he refused.
“I then grabbed his keys, pulled him out and locked him in the back of his own van,” George said.
He added that the police van was badly damaged, as if it had been involved in an accident.
Witnesses said that the officer who’d been locked in the back of the van began crying.
Russell George, we salute you sir! This took some serious guts and you are very lucky that the responding officers did not beat you down.
Reprinted with permission from Free Thought Project
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Drunk Cop Plows Into Young Woman, Sending Her To Critical Care
By Michael Heise
A police officer is being charged with misdemeanor DUI charges after he hit a woman who was waiting to cross the road early in the morning last Sunday.
The officer must have actually run over the sidewalk if the woman was just waiting to cross.
The blow left injuries so severe that the woman was taken into emergency care and was said to be in critical condition.
Chicago Police Department is keeping the officer’s identity a mystery, but they have relieved him of police duty pending an investigation.
Whether that is unpaid or not has not been released either.
We do know the cop has been on the force for two years and is 40 years old.
He will be facing 2 counts of misdemeanor DUI and failure to exercise due care with a pedestrian on the roadway.
Drunk Police Chief Pulled Over And Given A Ride Home Instead Of Being Arrested
Belchertown Police Chief Francis Fox: He apparently has a drinking problem.
The Granby police chief on Wednesday said his officers were placed in a
compromising situation when forced to pull over a vehicle last winter
and discovered Belchertown Police Chief Francis Fox was the operator.
Marijuana Dispensary Suing Mayor After Cops Raid Shop and Eat Edibles
Edible marijuana products in shop window, Amsterdam (Photo by nickolette)
By Don Shay
A raid on a California medical marijuana dispensary at the end of May revealed questionable police practices by the officers involved. Now, Sky High Holistic is suing Santa Ana mayor Miguel Pulido, claiming he ordered police to shut down the dispensary because they did not pay a $25,000 bribe that would guarantee their place in a lottery system for a license.
“Santa Ana mayor Miguel Pulido was named in the suit along with city employee Yvette Aguilar and the city itself. It alleges the city solicited $25,000 payments and gifts from marijuana dispensaries which would guarantee businesses would be granted a license in a lottery system. It also claims police were used to shut down operations that did not pay up.”
“It’s deplorable that city officials and people seeking financial gain would use the police to accomplish their self-serving goals,” said attorney Matthew Pappas, who is representing the raided shop.
Last week, the nonprofit group Voice for OC released video footage of cops raiding Sky High Holistic on May 27th. Authorities alleged the dispensary lacked the proper permit to operate. The video footage depicts armed officers with ski masks barging into the sales room with their guns drawn. Those inside were all ordered to the ground. Officers kicked everyone out and attempted to break all of the visible cameras. Unbeknownst to them, there were also hidden cameras that caught the aftermath. The footage showed the cops nonchalantly consuming the edible marijuana treats. One cop was heard laughing and making a comment referring to one of the disabled customers in the shop. “Did you punch that one-legged old bonita?” asks ones. A female cop responds, “I was about to kick her in her f—ing knob”. The police claimed they were conducting an investigation.
The officers knew they were going to act questionably, evident in that they attempted to tear down visible cameras. This behavior is very similar to what armed thugs do. How long will cannabis vendors that pose no harm be targeted by law enforcement? Santa Ana is a city that runs rampant with gang violence and hard drug abuse, so why is the mayor is targeting pot shops? When will the police actually focus their attention on critical issues instead of on harassing non-violent pot smokers?
The 32-year-old Edward “Butch” Foster was a father to six
children.
By Jess Swanson
On July 16, Edward “Butch” Foster III walked to the M&M Meat Market a few blocks away from his Homestead home to pick up some items. The 32-year-old father of six never came home. At 4 p.m., two Homestead police officers, responding to a 911 call about a gun-wielding man, shot Foster 11 times. It's now been more than a month since Foster’s death, and his family says they're frustrated with how slowly information has come out about what happened.
Police say Foster threatened officers and a gun was found on the scene. But the family says that minus video evidence — which doesn't exist since Homestead patrol cars are not equipped with dashboard cams and their officers don't wear body cameras — they doubt that story. The family is planning a protest in Homestead this afternoon and is asking for anyone with cell phone video or information to come forward.
“My brother was gunned down and handcuffed as a dead man. The family wants answers. We’re not going to forget about this and go away,” his sister Crystal Foster tells New Times. “We want to get out the word that every officer should be wearing body cameras.”
This much is clear: Foster was buying dog food at the Dollar Store when a Homestead cop named Anthony Green responded to the 911 call and confronted Foster near 328th Street and 187th Avenue. A police spokesperson later said the officer feared for his life when he fired from his car at Foster, and a 9-mm Sig Sauer was found near his body.
But the family disputes that story. They say multiple witnesses say that Foster had his hands up when he was shot and that none of them saw Foster wielding a gun.
THIS Is America: Murder an unarmed black man and the rats come out of the sewer to support you. Don't be surprised — In America, even serial killers have a fan base.
The eyes of a killer cop: Ray Tensing.
By Travis Gettys
People from all over the country offered to help pay the $1 million bond for the former campus police officer charged with murder in the shooting death of an unarmed black motorist.
Ray Tensing, who was fired as a University of Cincinnati police officer, posted 10 percent of the bond shortly before 7 p.m. Thursday, about nine hours after pleading not guilty during his arraignment.
The former officer’s attorney, Stew Mathews, said he had received numerous calls offering to help pay Tensing’s bail and legal fees, but he wasn’t sure whether his client would accept, reported WCPO-TV.
“I’m not prepared to do anything like that, but there are a lot of people who are prepared to help,” Mathews told ABC News. “His family is attempting to raise it through family members. I’m not sure where we are with it.”
Mathews said he would not allow Tensing to speak with the media, and the former officer’s family members have refused to speak with reporters.
“I’m divorced with no kids,” a man told reporters outside the home of Paul Tensing, the former cop’s father. “Did you see the ‘no trespassing’ signs on the property?”
A spokeswoman for the Hamilton County sheriff’s department said Tensing had been under suicide watch during his overnight stay in jail, and his attorney said the former officer is “not doing well.”
Hollywood has turned rights-violating cops, like the one depicted by Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, into heroes.
________________
Cop Who Killed Michael Brown - Once Recorded Attacking Man Who Was Recording Him: He Lied About it In Report
Too bad no one had a camera to record Darren Wilson's encounter with Michael Brown
Darren Wilson didn't like to be video taped.
_______________
Darren Wilson: "...Take a picture of me one more time, I'm a lock your ass up." Mike Arman: "Sir, do I not have the right to record?" — Darren Wilson: "No you don't."
________________
The video seems to tell a different story from what Darren Wilson provided in his police report
Excerpt from Darren Wilson's police report of the incident leading to arrest of man who video taped him.
1) Darren Wilson did not advise the individual that a voice recording would be acceptable.
2) The individual did not have his camera in Darren Wilson's face.
3) The individual was not ordered to get off the porch and place his hands behind his back before he was arrested.
Yet Another Police Public Torture Session Caught on Video: Man Repeatedly Kicked And Tasered in Orlando, Florida
At a press conference, psychotic police chief John Mina proclaimed, "The video doesn't show the whole story." In other words, its "okay" for police to repeatedly kick and taser a man who is sitting on the ground and not fighting back. In other works, if you are don't "follow orders"
immediately police can torture you later. With police "leaders" like this, America will soon become an all-encompassing neo-Nazi state.
The Police Torture of Noel Carter
____
Listen To What Passes for a "Police Chief" in Orlando, Florida
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Another Public Torture Session Caught On Tape — This Time It's Sadistic Cops in Salinas, California (Video)
Mentally ill 28-year-old Jose Velasco is the victim this time. He was tortured with batons and tasers by one group of cops, and when more cops showed up they join in the attack.
Warning: Graphic
______________
Public Torture Session by Cops Caught on Video Tape (Video)
Police in Long Beach, CA police didn't know they were being video taped as they tortured Porfirio Santos-Lopez with batons and tasers instead of simply arresting him after he fought with another man. Santos-Lopez suffered a broken arm and leg, and ruptured lung. The incident happened in September, 2013.
Cops having "fun" torturing a man: They didn't know they were being recorded.
_____________
______________
Cop Tasers A Man Who Tried To Stop Their Brutalization of a Woman (Video)
______________
NYC Cops Choke A Man To Death — For Selling Untaxed Cigarettes
By Celeste Katz
Mayor de Blasio on Friday promised a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Eric Garner after he was taken into police custody in Staten Island.
Garner, 43, a 400-pound, 6-foot-4 asthmatic, died after cops put him in a chokehold and apparently smashed his head onto the sidewalk while cuffing him outside a beauty supply store in Tompkinsville.
The married father and grandfather, who police say had a history of selling untaxed cigarettes, was videotaped screaming that he couldn't breathe as a cadre of officers took him to the ground.
Policeman Charged With Murder — Video Shows Him Shooting Unarmed Man 8 Times As He Was Running Away (Video)
The victim was identified as 50-year-old Walter Scott. (Screen capture from YouTube video)
By Dana Ford
A South Carolina officer has been charged with murder after a video surfaced that appears to show him shooting an unarmed man who was running away.
Michael Slager, an officer with the North Charleston Police Department, was arrested Tuesday, according to a statement from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, or SLED. If found guilty of murder, he could face up to life in prison or death.
The shooting took place Saturday morning after a traffic stop, SLED said. Video obtained by The New York Times shows what happened.
A black man breaks away from the white officer. Something falls, and the officer fires eight shots at the man as he runs away. The man, who appears to be unarmed, drops to the ground.
"I can tell you that as the result of that video and the bad decision made by our officer, he will be charged with murder," North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey told reporters Tuesday. "When you're wrong, you're wrong. And if you make a bad decision -- don't care if you're behind the shield or just a citizen on the street -- you have to live by that decision."
Cops Recorded Planting A Gun On Man — After Handcuffing, Punching Him in the Face and Calling Him A 'Pussy' (Video)
The charge for a "firearms violation" against the innocent victim were dropped and his arrest was dismissed. The corrupt cops were not fired from the Philadelphia police department nor were they even disciplined. Instead the cops were unleashed back into the community to create more havoc and frame more people. The incident took place in 2010 and all charges were dropped against the victim in 2013.
The cop reaches into his pocket and out pops a gun. This is how mass incarceration works, and how cops
collect massive amounts of overtime making false arrests and then relaxing at the police station
while writing lies into arrest reports.
___________
At about 0:48 you can see the cop pull the gun out of his pocket and then act like he found it on the victim
______________
Photo Proves Cops Covered Up Evidence In Case of Man They Shot To Death — Cops Also Refused To Let Nurse Help Victim
The victim of a police murder was a well liked computer expert with a masters degree in computer systems engineering.
Jermaine McBean
By NBC News
After Florida police shot Jermaine McBean to death as he walked home with an unloaded air rifle, they said there was no reason to believe he did not hear their orders to drop the weapon and that he pointed it at them.
But a newly emerged photo that shows headphones in McBean's ears immediately after the 2013 shooting raises questions about the police version of events, including why the white earbuds were later found stuffed in the dead computer expert's pocket.
And another aspect of the police account is also being contradicted — by a man who called 911 in alarm when he saw McBean walking around with the air rifle but who also says McBean never pointed it at police or anyone else.
Michael Russell McCarthy, 58, told NBC News that McBean had the Winchester Model 1000 Air Rifle balanced on his shoulders behind his neck, with his hand over both ends, and was turning around to face police when one officer began shooting.
"He [McBean] couldn't have fired that gun from the position he was in. There was no possible way of firing it and at the same time hitting something," McCarthy said. "I kind of blame myself, because if I hadn't called it might not have happened."
Killer Cops Just Wanted A 'Kill" To Brag About
The killer cops told two lies: 1) They said he wasn't using earphones and could
hear them when they said "drop the gun" (he was wearing earphones and he
couldn't hear them); 2) They said he pointed the gun at them — He didn't. The
man who called 911 about a man carrying a rifle ("possible just an air rifle")
says McBean never pointed the toy at police.
Nearly two years later, the shooting is still the subject of an "active investigation" by prosecutors. McBean's family filed a wrongful death and misconduct lawsuit against the sheriff's office several weeks ago.
Their attorney, civil rights lawyer David Schoen, says the photo of McBean with the headphones — which he provided to NBC News — is evidence of a "coverup."
The witness who took it, a nurse who asked to remain anonymous, says she pointed out the earbuds to police at the scene, after they rebuffed her offer to provide first aid to the dying man.
A transcript shows that Deputy Peter Peraza, who fired the fatal shots, repeatedly told sheriff's investigators that he did not see anything in McBean's ears.
And the homicide detective who led an internal review told McBean's relatives in an email that officers on the scene "confirmed" he was not wearing a earpiece — after the family explained that he always had them on when he was out walking. The detective said the buds were found in his pocket, with his phone, at the hospital.
The family's attorney (the very same creep who defended George Zimmerman and lied about Trayvon Martin) begged the black community to "remain calm" in the face of yet another murder by a maniac cop. At the press conference the media was already encouraging the family to give "oh Lord forgive him" speeches.
—Ronald David Jackson
An "officer" points gun at an already dead Samuel DuBose.
In the indictment handed down by a grand jury in Hamilton County, the officer, Ray Tensing, is accused of killing the driver, Samuel DuBose, during a traffic stop near the campus on July 19.
Samuel DuBose was a father of 10 children.
At a news conference, the county prosecutor, Joe Deters, said that Officer Tensing “purposely killed” Mr. DuBose after the officer lost his temper.
"Officer" Ray Tensing: Just another
white cop wholoses his mind at the
mere sight of a black person.
The death of Mr. DuBose, who was black, at the hands of Officer Tensing, who is white, joined a string of recent episodes — in Staten Island, Cleveland, North Charleston, S.C., and Ferguson, Mo., among others — that have raised hard questions about law enforcement use of force, and the role of race in policing. Video cameras have recorded many of the episodes and nonlethal encounters like the arrest of Sandra Bland, who died three days later in a Texas jail cell, offering disturbing evidence of the confrontations that often contradicts the accounts of people involved.
Mr. DuBose, 43, a father of 10, was just south of the university campus, driving a green 1998 Honda Accord without a front license plate, when Officer Tensing began following him, according to an account that Jason Goodrich, chief of the university police, gave on Monday. Moments later, the officer pulled Mr. Dubose over on a side street, a few blocks from the campus, Mr. Goodrich said.
Jonathan Sanders: He owned horses and a buggy. Witnesses say he was exercising his horses when he was strangled to death by a cop. Police claim they are "investigating" the murder. The incident took place in Mississippi.
Below is the state flag of Mississippi:
The state flag of Mississippi: Remind you of anything?
By Jeff Amy
It’s a tiny little memorial in the yard of an aging mobile home in a down-on-its-luck Mississippi mill town. Poster boards with votive candles form hearts, there are silk flowers and red, white and blue balloons. There’s a sign demanding “Justice 4 Jonathan.”
Here on Artesia Avenue is where Jonathan Sanders died after 10 p.m. on July 8, following a physical encounter with a white police officer for the town of Stonewall. What happened that night when Sanders — a 39-year-old black man riding in a two-wheel buggy pulled by a horse — crossed paths with Kevin Herrington — a 25-year-old part-time officer — is intensely disputed.
Lawyers for the Sanders family and witnesses who live in the mobile home say Herrington engaged in an unprovoked attack on Sanders after the two saw each other at a convenience store a mile across town. C.J. Lawrence, the lawyer for three witnesses, said Sanders was doing nothing illegal and didn’t resist while Herrington choked him to death.
A lawyer for Herrington, though, said the officer found Sanders with what appeared to be illegal drugs. Sanders and Herrington struggled in the grass and Sanders grabbed Herrington’s gun from his holster, only to drop it in the grass, attorney Bill Ready Jr. said.
Trying to sort out the facts are the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and the FBI. Herrington is on unpaid leave and left town on a family trip, Ready said. Sanders’ survivors — including a mother, sister and two children — buried him Saturday.
Authorities are asking for calm while they finish investigating. But there were already two protests last weekend attended by hundreds in this town of 1,100 near the Alabama line.
Another protest is planned Sunday, as attorneys for Sanders’ family paint his death as part of a larger nationwide struggle over police brutality against black men, and they see it as part of the unfinished civil rights movement in Stonewall, a town named after Confederate general Stonewall Jackson.
Chokwe Antar Lumumba, the Sanders family lawyer, said authorities told relatives that an autopsy found he died from “manual asphyxiation” — strangulation. He said the manner of death was homicide, not accidental.
A spokesman for MBI said the agency doesn’t discuss ongoing investigations.
The autopsy finding doesn’t necessarily mean Herrington committed a crime and accounts so far leave unanswered questions: What triggered the encounter? Was Herrington using necessary force, or was Sanders the victim of an overly aggressive officer?
And at a time when police departments are under intense scrutiny for treatment of black suspects, did race play a factor?
Stonewall doesn’t have cameras in police cars or on officers, putting the focus on witnesses. Clarke County Sheriff Todd Kemp said one witness is Rachel Williams, a jail guard in neighboring Lauderdale County.
Lawrence, the witnesses’ attorney, won’t confirm her name, or describe the others, except to say they are related and also distantly related to Sanders by marriage. Lawrence said the witnesses sought lawyers because they fear for their safety. Lawrence is a law partner of Lumumba, the Sanders’ family attorney.
Also present at the time of the death were Herrington and his wife, Kasey Herrington, who was riding that night in his police car.
The lawyers for the witnesses relayed their accounts to The Associated Press but said they did not want to talk directly with reporters: The witnesses say Herrington drove up behind Sanders and flashed his blue lights, causing the horse to rear. Sanders fell off the buggy and chased the horse, while Herrington ran up and grabbed Sanders by the strap of a headlamp he was wearing that had fallen around his neck. They say Sanders fell to the ground in a fetal position, trying to relieve pressure on his neck but otherwise not resisting, while Herrington lay atop him and put him in a chokehold.
The attorneys said one witness went outside and pleaded with Herrington to release Sanders. He refused until his wife retrieved his gun. Then Herrington directed his wife to radio for backup. When Herrington finally released Sanders, witnesses say he was unconscious and that blood came out of his mouth.
Caroline Small's (top): Her car was hemmed in by police cars
and couldn't go anywhere (middle)... just before police rained
bullets on her body and head as indicated by bullet trajectories
(bottom). A witness described seeing her head explode.
By Shaun King
On June 18, 2010, an unarmed mother struggling with a mental health breakdown was executed by two Glynn County Police officers in southern rural Georgia. Hyperbole aside, it was a firing squad. It shouldn't have happened. The officers who did it weren't threatened and they should be in jail right now for the murder of Caroline Small. Not just tragic and disturbing, what happened to her was criminal and the fact that the two officers who killed her are still in law enforcement shows just how outrageously corrupt the system is. It's not broken, though—it's working just how those who are running it intend.
First, I need you to see this video below. I'm sorry for its brutality and for the mandatory commercial that rolls before it begins, but you have to see it to understand the outrageousness of what happened to Caroline.
Police often shoot and kill people who are in their cars. They claim they fear for their safety and have no other choice. No police execution demonstrates this lie more than how police killed Caroline Small. I can hardly contain my emotions even now.
Caroline Small had a painful history of mental illness. Having undergone a bitter divorce, she was struggling with life when she led police on a slow-motion chase through her small town in her beat-up old car. Having run over a spike strip police set out for her, all of her tires were gone and nothing was left but the rims.
Police, as you will see in the photo below, had her backed in on the front and back of the car, with a tree and a ditch to the other side. Literally and figuratively, Small was stuck. Her car, at that moment, was a metaphor for her life ... wheels coming off, pressure all around her.
She needed, desperately so, to be seen by mental health specialists. She was completely unarmed with nothing more than a empty plastic bottle of Mountain Dew, and police at that point should and could have simply walked up to her door, opened it up, and arrested her, gently or forcefully. Either one would've done the trick.
Police, though, were determined that shooting her face off was the absolutely, without a doubt, the best course of action. This is America after all. If you sense danger, shoot someone's face off. One of the officers even told a witness he saw her head explode.
Lorenzo Davis, 65, was the only supervisor at Chicago’s Independent
Police Review Authority who resisted
orders to change findings about
shootings, according to an evaluation by the Independent Police Review
Authority (IPRA). (Photo screen captured from YouTube video)
By Chip Mitchell
A Chicago investigator who determined that several civilian shootings by police officers were unjustified was fired after resisting orders to reverse those findings, according to internal records of his agency obtained by WBEZ.
Scott M. Ando, chief administrator of the city’s Independent Police Review Authority, informed its staff in a July 9 email that the agency no longer employed supervising investigator Lorenzo Davis, 65, a former Chicago police commander. IPRA investigates police-brutality complaints and recommends any punishment.
Davis’s termination came less than two weeks after top IPRA officials, evaluating Davis’s job performance, accused him of “a clear bias against the police” and called him “the only supervisor at IPRA who resists making requested changes as directed by management in order to reflect the correct finding with respect to OIS,” as officer-involved shootings are known in the agency.
Since its 2007 creation, IPRA has investigated nearly 400 civilian shootings by police and found one to be unjustified.
WBEZ asked to interview Ando, promoted last year by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to head the agency. The station also sent Ando’s spokesman questions about sticking points between IPRA investigators and managers, about the agency’s process for overturning investigative findings, and about the reasons the agency had reversed many of Davis’s findings.
The spokesman said there would be no interview and sent this statement: “This is a personnel matter that would be inappropriate to address through the media, though the allegations are baseless and without merit. IPRA is committed to conducting fair, unbiased, objective, thorough and timely investigations of allegations of police misconduct and officer-involved shootings.”
The performance evaluation covered 19 months and concluded that Davis “displays a complete lack of objectivity combined with a clear bias against the police in spite of his own lengthy police career.”Davis served in the police department for 23 years. As a commander, he headed detective units, the department’s Austin district and, finally, its public-housing unit. He retired from the department in 2004.
“I did not like the direction the police department had taken,” Davis said. “It appeared that officers were doing whatever they wanted to do. The discipline was no longer there.”
After leaving the department, Davis says, he kept thinking about police conduct, especially shootings. Davis, who had a law degree, says he wondered how often the officers really faced life-threatening dangers that would justify deadly force.
“If there are a few bad police officers who have committed some shootings that are unnecessary or bad then it erodes the public’s confidence in all the other police officers out there,” Davis said.
Jonathan Sanders, a 39-year-old Stonewall resident, died last Wednesday
evening following an altercation with an officer. Sanders -- who owned
horses and a buggy -- was exercising his horses when he was approached
by officer Kevin Harrington, snatched off of his horse and chocked to death. Sanders' girlfriend said he was not violating any laws when he was approached by the cop.
Jonathan Sanders: He owned
horses and a buggy. Witnesses say he was exercising his horses when he was snatched off a horse and strangled to death by a cop. Police claim they are "investigating" the murder. The incident took place in Mississippi. Below is the state flag of Mississippi.
