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Photographs and video Ronald David Jackson
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Obama Belongs on List of World's Tyrants | Against Authoritarian Threat of Far-Right |
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Showing posts with label police killings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label police killings. Show all posts
Suspended Chicago Cop Who Murdered Mentally Ill Teen With 16 Bullets Hired by Police Union
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| Is This Man A Nazi? Dean Angelo: President, Chicago Fraternal Order of Police. |
By Kali Holloway
A Chicago cop who was suspended from the force for shooting an unarmed African-American teenager 16 times now has a job with the police union.
Jason Van Dyke, a white police officer who killed 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014, emptying his gun into the teen as he walked away from cops, was charged with first-degree murder last year. He was subsequently suspended without pay from the department. Chicago Fraternal Order of Police president Dean Angelo told the Associated Press the organization had taken on Van Dyke because he’s in a “very difficult situation, financially."
Angelo told the Chicago Sun-Times that Van Dyke performs a number of odd jobs for the union. “He might be on the roof, he might be in the office,” Angelo said, “he does anything we need.”
A national light was cast on the McDonald case last year, thanks to the city’s handling of the shooting. The facts of the case, when they finally emerged, seemed to involve police brutality and murder, a coverup, suppression of video of the incident, and dirty politics.
[…]
“[T]he misconduct complaints from Van Dyke that we do have in our data tool show by and large excessive force and racial slurs,” Alison Flowers, of Invisible Institute, told press. “He has largely operated with impunity and under a code of silence with the same huddle of officers again and again.”
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Stephen A. Smith Says There's NO Racism in America Today - Here's His 'Proof' (Video)
Obviously Stephen A. Smith needs "help' — Here it is.
Stone Cold Cowardly Murderers: Cops Kill Couple Who Were Sleeping in Car (Video)
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| The Victims: Marquintan Sandlin (Middle) and Kisha Michael. |
By
Police responded to a call of a suspicious vehicle parked on Manchester Boulevard around 3:10 am. When police arrived, they engaged in a 45-minute long standoff before opening fire on the man and woman inside the vehicle, killing them both.
In the news release on Monday, following the shooting, police claimed that the woman in the car had a gun. Scott Collins, a spokesman for the Inglewood Police Department said that the couple refused to obey the officers’ commands to exit the vehicle. The officers then feared for their safety and opened fire on the car — killing the couple.
The woman was pronounced dead shortly after the shooting, and the man succumbed to his injuries after paramedics transported him to a local hospital, according to the LA Times.
The shooting seemed like an open and shut case until the next day. Mayor James Butts, while responding to questions about the shooting, opened up a huge can of worms — both the man and the woman were unconscious.
For at least 45 minutes, police attempted “to rouse” them in an effort “to de-escalate the situation,” said Butts.
After admitting that the couple was asleep, Butts quickly defended the officers, noting, “Obviously at some point they were conscious because somebody felt threatened.”
However, that notion has yet to be proven and is particularly unlikely due to the fact that not a single officer received so much as a scratch, nor did the couple have any reason to be violent.
Both of the victims were parents; Kisha Michael, 31, a single mother of three sons, and Marquintan Sandlin, 32, a single father of four daughters.
Michael’s twin sister Kisha stated the obvious when she said that it’s possible that Kisha merely passed out on the way home from their night out.
Families for both described them as devoted parents who made arrangements for care of their children while they took a night off, according to NBC Los Angeles.
“The police ain’t telling us nothing,” said Trisha Michael after being met with tight lips from the department.
“He was a loving father,” said Sandlin’s sister Leandra Faulkner. “All he cared about was his girls, getting them right.”
Of course, as is standard procedure for all those killed by police, their arrest records were released to shame them. Michael was on probation for a misdemeanor last year, and 7 years ago, Sandlin was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm in Los Angeles.
According to his relatives, Sandlin had a ‘rough life’ but had turned it around and was working as a successful truck driver.
Sadly, these children will now grow up knowing that their parents were taken from them by cops, scared of a sleeping couple.
Reprinted with permission from Free Thought Project
How Militarized Police Are Turning American Communities Into War Zones, Death by Death
When it comes to people of color, the police make San Francisco “Baghdad by the Bay.”
By Rebecca Gordon
In the photo, five of Beyoncé’s leather-clad, black-bereted dancers raise their fists in a Black Power salute. The woman in the middle holds a hand-lettered sign up for the camera, bearing three words and a number: “Justice 4 Mario Woods.” Behind them, the crowd at Levi's Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers, is getting ready for the second half of Super Bowl 50, but the game’s real fireworks are already over.
The women in the photo had just finished backing Beyoncé’s homage to the Black Panthers and Malcolm X during her incandescent halftime appearance, when two San Francisco Bay Area Black Lives Matter activists managed to grab a few words with them. Rheema Emy Calloway and Ronnisha Johnson asked if they’d make a quick video demanding justice for Mario Woods. “From the look on the faces of the dancers, they’d already heard about the case,” Calloway told the Guardian.
Who was Mario Woods and why did Calloway and Johnson want the world to know that his life mattered? The answer: on December 2, 2015, Mario Woods was executed in broad daylight by officers of the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) and the event was filmed.
Woods was a 26-year-old African American, born and raised in San Francisco’s Bayview district, one of the city’s few remaining largely black neighborhoods. (In 1980, right before I moved to San Francisco, African Americans made up almost 13% of the city’s population. Today, the figure is around 6% and shrinking.) Woods died when police attempted to arrest him because they believed that, earlier in the day, he had stabbed another man in the arm. Like many victims of police violence, Woods had mental health problems. Indeed, his autopsy’s toxicology report showed that, when he died, his system contained a powerful mix of medications (both prescribed and self-administered) including anti-depressants, speed, and marijuana.
But it was the way he died that brought Mario Woods a brief bit of posthumous notoreity. His death was, like Beyoncé’s dancers, captured onvideo. A crowd of people watched as what CNN described as “a sea of police officers” surrounded Woods and shot him dead. At least two people recorded cell-phone videos of what looks eerily like an execution by firing squad.
Woods, his back to a wall, one leg injured from earlier rounds of non-lethal projectiles, attempts to limp past the half-circle of police. Arms at his sides, he sidles along, until an officer blocks his way and opens fire. Three seconds and at least 20 shots later, he lies in a heap on the sidewalk. Police said he was carrying a knife, although this is not at all clear from the video. One thing is clear, however: Woods was not threatening anyone when he was gunned down.
From Hippies to Hipsters -- Policing the City of Love
San Francisco is known around the world for its gentle vibe, its Left Coast politics, its live-and-let-live approach to other people’s lifestyles -- except when it comes to the police. For many of them, “live and let live” does not seem to apply to everyone, especially not to communities of color, and in the not-too-distant past to LGBT folk either. I remember, for instance, the infamous October 6, 1989, “Castro Sweep,” when police responded to a nonviolent Act Up demonstration for AIDS funding by occupying an entire gay neighborhood called “the Castro” (for its main commercial street). They ran into bars and restaurants, dragging patrons out to the sidewalks and beating them with truncheons.
I was working some blocks away at the headquarters of the “Yes on S” campaign, supporting what now seems like a quaint ballot measure (which failed) aimed at creating domestic partnerships in the City of Love. A bleeding man came stumbling into our office shouting that the police were rioting in the Castro. For once, the SFPD had gone too far and the city ended up paying out $250,000 (a pittance even then) to settle a class action suit by the victims. A couple of police captains were finally disciplined, but Chief of Police Frank Jordan was not penalized at all and went on to serve as mayor from 1992 to 1996. The Castro Sweep might hold a bigger place in the city’s memory and history, had the Loma Prieta earthquake not shaken San Francisco 11 days later.
Once a mostly white department -- at whom demonstrators used to chant, “Racist, sexist, anti-gay, SFPD go away!” -- the city’s police force is now significantly more diverse. Today, women, people of color, and open LGBT folk all wear the blue, but a hard core of the old guard remains. With them remains a still-dominant culture of sexism, homophobia, racism, and impunity. In 2015, a series of text messages involving at least 10 different SFPD members came to light during a corruption case against one of them,Ian Fruminger. Sent between 2010 and 2012, these messages revealed just how ugly the attitudes of that hard core are -- and how entitled they seem to feel to end the lives of people they believe deserve it.
Here’s a sample: Fruminger texted a friend who was an SFPD officer, "I hate to tell you this but my wife [sic] friend is over with their kids and her husband is black! If [sic] is an Attorney but should I be worried?"
He wrote back: "Get ur pocket gun. Keep it available in case the monkey returns to his roots. Its [sic] not against the law to put an animal down."
Furminger responded, "Well said!"
When the city moved to fire the officers involved, a judge ruled that the police department had missed a legal deadline for disciplinary action.
Not the First Time
Mario Woods was hardly the first man shot by the police in my adopted hometown. In fact, in the last couple of years two such killings happened in my neighborhood.
Alejandro “Alex” Nieto died on Bernal Heights. It’s a hilltop near my house where people go to run, often with their dogs, and take in glorious views of the city that San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen used to call “Baghdad by the Bay” to emphasize its exotic character, long before Iraq became part of theAxis of Evil. Alex Nieto, a community college student who made his living working as a security guard, came from the largely Latino and immigrant-populated Mission District.
On the night of March 21, 2014, Nieto sat on a bench on Bernal Heights to eat a burrito before going to work. On his hip was the taser he carried on the job. An anonymous call to 911 reported a man sitting in the park with a gun on his hip and the SFPD responded.
In January 2016, his parents, Refugio and Elvira Nieto, would finally file awrongful death suit against Chief of Police Greg Suhr, up to 25 as-yet-unidentified police officers, and the city and county of San Francisco. The suit alleges that as their son, having finished his burrito, was “casually” walking down a jogging path towards the park entrance, the police arrived. Two officers took cover behind a patrol car, while several others, carrying what witnesses said looked like rifles, took up positions behind Nieto. One of the officers behind the police car, yelled, “Stop.” Here, in the words of the suit, is what happened next:
“Within seconds a quick volley of bullets were fired at Mr. Nieto. No additional orders or any other verbal communication was heard between the first Officer yelling 'stop' and the initial volley of gunfire that rang out. Mr. Nieto fell to the ground. After a brief pause of just a second or two, a second barrage of shots were fired. The Officers’ bullets struck Mr. Nieto in his forehead and at least nine other places leaving his body grossly disfigured and mortally wounded.”The police claimed that Nieto pointed his taser at them and they had to kill him. But eyewitnesses say that he never threatened anyone.
Read More
By Rebecca Gordon
In the photo, five of Beyoncé’s leather-clad, black-bereted dancers raise their fists in a Black Power salute. The woman in the middle holds a hand-lettered sign up for the camera, bearing three words and a number: “Justice 4 Mario Woods.” Behind them, the crowd at Levi's Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers, is getting ready for the second half of Super Bowl 50, but the game’s real fireworks are already over.
The women in the photo had just finished backing Beyoncé’s homage to the Black Panthers and Malcolm X during her incandescent halftime appearance, when two San Francisco Bay Area Black Lives Matter activists managed to grab a few words with them. Rheema Emy Calloway and Ronnisha Johnson asked if they’d make a quick video demanding justice for Mario Woods. “From the look on the faces of the dancers, they’d already heard about the case,” Calloway told the Guardian.
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| Eric Garner Protest 4th December 2014, Manhattan, NYC. (Photo by The All-Nite Images) |
Woods was a 26-year-old African American, born and raised in San Francisco’s Bayview district, one of the city’s few remaining largely black neighborhoods. (In 1980, right before I moved to San Francisco, African Americans made up almost 13% of the city’s population. Today, the figure is around 6% and shrinking.) Woods died when police attempted to arrest him because they believed that, earlier in the day, he had stabbed another man in the arm. Like many victims of police violence, Woods had mental health problems. Indeed, his autopsy’s toxicology report showed that, when he died, his system contained a powerful mix of medications (both prescribed and self-administered) including anti-depressants, speed, and marijuana.
But it was the way he died that brought Mario Woods a brief bit of posthumous notoreity. His death was, like Beyoncé’s dancers, captured onvideo. A crowd of people watched as what CNN described as “a sea of police officers” surrounded Woods and shot him dead. At least two people recorded cell-phone videos of what looks eerily like an execution by firing squad.
Woods, his back to a wall, one leg injured from earlier rounds of non-lethal projectiles, attempts to limp past the half-circle of police. Arms at his sides, he sidles along, until an officer blocks his way and opens fire. Three seconds and at least 20 shots later, he lies in a heap on the sidewalk. Police said he was carrying a knife, although this is not at all clear from the video. One thing is clear, however: Woods was not threatening anyone when he was gunned down.
From Hippies to Hipsters -- Policing the City of Love
San Francisco is known around the world for its gentle vibe, its Left Coast politics, its live-and-let-live approach to other people’s lifestyles -- except when it comes to the police. For many of them, “live and let live” does not seem to apply to everyone, especially not to communities of color, and in the not-too-distant past to LGBT folk either. I remember, for instance, the infamous October 6, 1989, “Castro Sweep,” when police responded to a nonviolent Act Up demonstration for AIDS funding by occupying an entire gay neighborhood called “the Castro” (for its main commercial street). They ran into bars and restaurants, dragging patrons out to the sidewalks and beating them with truncheons.
I was working some blocks away at the headquarters of the “Yes on S” campaign, supporting what now seems like a quaint ballot measure (which failed) aimed at creating domestic partnerships in the City of Love. A bleeding man came stumbling into our office shouting that the police were rioting in the Castro. For once, the SFPD had gone too far and the city ended up paying out $250,000 (a pittance even then) to settle a class action suit by the victims. A couple of police captains were finally disciplined, but Chief of Police Frank Jordan was not penalized at all and went on to serve as mayor from 1992 to 1996. The Castro Sweep might hold a bigger place in the city’s memory and history, had the Loma Prieta earthquake not shaken San Francisco 11 days later.
Once a mostly white department -- at whom demonstrators used to chant, “Racist, sexist, anti-gay, SFPD go away!” -- the city’s police force is now significantly more diverse. Today, women, people of color, and open LGBT folk all wear the blue, but a hard core of the old guard remains. With them remains a still-dominant culture of sexism, homophobia, racism, and impunity. In 2015, a series of text messages involving at least 10 different SFPD members came to light during a corruption case against one of them,Ian Fruminger. Sent between 2010 and 2012, these messages revealed just how ugly the attitudes of that hard core are -- and how entitled they seem to feel to end the lives of people they believe deserve it.
Here’s a sample: Fruminger texted a friend who was an SFPD officer, "I hate to tell you this but my wife [sic] friend is over with their kids and her husband is black! If [sic] is an Attorney but should I be worried?"
He wrote back: "Get ur pocket gun. Keep it available in case the monkey returns to his roots. Its [sic] not against the law to put an animal down."
Furminger responded, "Well said!"
When the city moved to fire the officers involved, a judge ruled that the police department had missed a legal deadline for disciplinary action.
Not the First Time
Mario Woods was hardly the first man shot by the police in my adopted hometown. In fact, in the last couple of years two such killings happened in my neighborhood.
Alejandro “Alex” Nieto died on Bernal Heights. It’s a hilltop near my house where people go to run, often with their dogs, and take in glorious views of the city that San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen used to call “Baghdad by the Bay” to emphasize its exotic character, long before Iraq became part of theAxis of Evil. Alex Nieto, a community college student who made his living working as a security guard, came from the largely Latino and immigrant-populated Mission District.
On the night of March 21, 2014, Nieto sat on a bench on Bernal Heights to eat a burrito before going to work. On his hip was the taser he carried on the job. An anonymous call to 911 reported a man sitting in the park with a gun on his hip and the SFPD responded.
In January 2016, his parents, Refugio and Elvira Nieto, would finally file awrongful death suit against Chief of Police Greg Suhr, up to 25 as-yet-unidentified police officers, and the city and county of San Francisco. The suit alleges that as their son, having finished his burrito, was “casually” walking down a jogging path towards the park entrance, the police arrived. Two officers took cover behind a patrol car, while several others, carrying what witnesses said looked like rifles, took up positions behind Nieto. One of the officers behind the police car, yelled, “Stop.” Here, in the words of the suit, is what happened next:
“Within seconds a quick volley of bullets were fired at Mr. Nieto. No additional orders or any other verbal communication was heard between the first Officer yelling 'stop' and the initial volley of gunfire that rang out. Mr. Nieto fell to the ground. After a brief pause of just a second or two, a second barrage of shots were fired. The Officers’ bullets struck Mr. Nieto in his forehead and at least nine other places leaving his body grossly disfigured and mortally wounded.”The police claimed that Nieto pointed his taser at them and they had to kill him. But eyewitnesses say that he never threatened anyone.
Read More
Thousands Protest Conviction of NYC Cop Who Shot Man Dead By Mistake — Say He's A Scapegoat (Video)
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| Thousands of protesters turned out across the US for Officer Peter Lang (left) after his conviction in the killing of Akai Gurley. Gurley was shot in the head by Lang while walking in the stairwell of his apartment building. Lang's supporters call the incident a "tragic accident not manslaughter." Prosecutors described Lang's behavior as "reckless." (Lang and Protesters screenshots from YouTube videos) |
By RICK ROJAS
On the vast lawn of the plaza near the courthouse in Brooklyn where Peter Liang, a former New York City police officer, was convicted in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man just over a week ago, a crowd of several thousand people gathered on Saturday.
They chanted, “No scapegoat! No scapegoat!” and carried signs bearing the same message. Some said they had never had a reason to protest before, while others said they had taken the day off from work or had come by train and bus from across the city — or as far as New Jersey and Connecticut — to take part in the demonstration at Cadman Plaza Park to show their support for Officer Liang.
Prosecutors had described Officer Liang’s behavior as reckless when he fired his gun inside a public housing complex, and argued that after the man, Akai Gurley, had been shot, the officer seemed more concerned about his career than in helping Mr. Gurley, who was 28.
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| Akai Gurley was 28 years old and the father of a young child when he was shot and killed by Officer Peter Lang. |
Yet Officer Liang’s conviction has gripped many in the city’s Chinese-American community, who believe that he had been targeted for prosecution because of his race. They followed the case closely and have been denouncing the jury’s verdict, arguing that Officer Liang, 28, was a victim himself.
Supporters of Officer Liang noted the strained relationship between the police and African-Americans across the country, after a string of incidents in which unarmed black men were killed by officers, many of whom were never charged.
Officer Liang, in their view, was the one who had to pay the price. One of the printed announcements for the rally read, “In the wake of so many unfortunate deaths of unarmed black men, some cops gotta hang.” The evidence against Officer Liang, his supporters contend, did not seem as clear-cut compared to the cases of other officers who have not been prosecuted. Some also believed that the gunfire had been an accidental discharge.
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NYPD Cop Found Guilty of Manslaughter: Akai Gurley Shot — Walked Down Stairs Due To Broken Elevator
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| Akai Gurley (l.) was shot in a stairwell of the Pink Houses in Brooklyn. Peter Liang (r.) leaves the courtroom after the jury's verdict on Thursday. |
By Christina Carrega-woodby, John Marzulli, Stephen Rex Brown
The rookie NYPD cop who gunned down innocent and unarmed Akai Gurley in a Brooklyn housing project was convicted Thursday of manslaughter.
The shocking verdict was a powerful message from the jury that the public’s opinion on police killings has radically changed in the wake of Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Michael Brown and other tragedies around the country.
The tension was palpable in the Brooklyn courtroom as the jury returned with the verdict just before 7:00 p.m.
Gurley’s family sat in the front row, as they had every day for the two week-long trial.
"I want to thank God. The D.A. was a man of his word,” said Kimberly Ballinger, the mother of Gurley’s daughter. “And I thank the jurors so much."”
“We’re not rejoicing,” Gurley’s aunt Hortencia Peterson told the Daily News. “But it's about being accountable. It’s about a girl who will never know her father.”
Liang, also convicted of official misconduct, faces up to 15 years in jail when he’s sentenced April 14. He is the first NYPD cop to be convicted for a police-involved shooting in a decade.
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Ferguson Fraud: City Spent Months Negotiating Deal On Policing Practices With Justice Department — Sued for Reneging at Last Minute
By Matt Pearce
The city of Ferguson, Mo., must now defend itself against a lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice after months of negotiations failed to bring a compromise on a package of reforms designed to revamp the city's controversial policing practices.
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U.S. Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch announced the action against Ferguson on Wednesday, a day after federal officials said Ferguson’s City Council tried to unilaterally modify and pass its own version of reforms.
A “disappointed” Lynch criticized Ferguson’s city leaders for trying to amend a package of reforms that had been hammered out between city and federal officials after seven months of what she called “painstaking” negotiations. The reforms include the mandatory use of body cameras and a repeal of city laws that allow police to jail people for not paying fines.
In a 6-0 vote Tuesday night, the City Council said it would only accept the package if the Justice Department agreed to several conditions that included limits on staffing mandates and longer deadlines.
“Every part of that document was discussed and was negotiated extensively,” Lynch said in a televised news conference in Washington, D.C.
Lynch added, “The city was well aware that had they decided not to accept it, they were choosing litigation.”
Ferguson became a national symbol of troubled policing after the August 2014 police shooting death of unarmed, black 18-year-old Michael Brown by a white police officer led to riots and lengthy protests in the predominantly African American St. Louis suburb.
An ensuing Department of Justice investigation found no reason to charge the officer who shot Brown, Darren Wilson, who said Brown had charged at him. Federal investigators could not prove activists’ claims that Brown had his hands up when Wilson shot him.
But a separate department investigation found that the city's police force systematically racially profiled and harassed black residents. The Justice Department report released last March found that the city’s overwhelmingly white police force set dogs on black residents and that officers were seven times more likely to use force on black residents than whites. Black drivers were almost twice as likely as white drivers to be searched during a traffic stop even though they were less likely to be found in possession of something illegal.
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Secret Police Union Contracts Call for the Cover Up and Destruction of Civilian Complaint Records
Many of the city contracts with police unions called for "special procedures" that helped police cover up brutality and murder.
By George Joseph
Contracts between police and city authorities, leaked after hackers breached the website of the country’s biggest law enforcement union, contain guarantees that disciplinary records and complaints made against officers are kept secret or even destroyed.
A Guardian analysis of dozens of contracts obtained from the servers of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) found that more than a third featured clauses allowing – and often mandating – the destruction of records of civilian complaints, departmental investigations, or disciplinary actions after a negotiated period of time.
The review also found that 30% of the 67 leaked police contracts, which were struck between cities and police unions, included provisions barring public access to records of past civilian complaints, departmental investigations, and disciplinary actions.
Samuel Walker, a professor in criminology at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, said there was “no justification” for the cleansing of officers’ records, which could contain details of their use of force against civilians.
“The public has a right to know,” Walker said. “If there was a controversial beating, we ought to know what action was actually taken. Was it a reprimand? A suspension?”
Walker said that while an officer’s whole personnel file should not be readily available to the public outside of court proceedings, records of disciplinary action should be.
The leaked contracts became publicly accessible last week, when hackers breached the Fraternal Order of Police’s website and put around 2.5GB worth of its files online. These provide a glimpse into the influence of police unions, which Black Lives Matter activists have accused of impeding misconduct investigations, particularly after the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland in April.
The documents date back almost two decades and include agreements from unions such as the Policemen’s Benevolent Association and the International Brotherhood of Police Officers. Many contain numerous recurring clauses that slow down misconduct investigations, prevent public access to complaints and disciplinary records, and enable the destruction of complaints and disciplinary records after a negotiated period of time.
At least as recently as 2007, if an officer in Independence, Missouri, was “involved in a shooting incident”, that officer could not be interrogated for at least 12 hours nor be “treated a suspect” unless local authorities thought there was reasonable suspicion or probable cause that a crime had been committed. This protocol was mandated in the local police union’s contract in a clause specifically designed for “officer-involved shooting investigations”.
Read More
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| Photo by Eddy Van 3000. |
By George Joseph
Contracts between police and city authorities, leaked after hackers breached the website of the country’s biggest law enforcement union, contain guarantees that disciplinary records and complaints made against officers are kept secret or even destroyed.
A Guardian analysis of dozens of contracts obtained from the servers of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) found that more than a third featured clauses allowing – and often mandating – the destruction of records of civilian complaints, departmental investigations, or disciplinary actions after a negotiated period of time.
The review also found that 30% of the 67 leaked police contracts, which were struck between cities and police unions, included provisions barring public access to records of past civilian complaints, departmental investigations, and disciplinary actions.
Samuel Walker, a professor in criminology at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, said there was “no justification” for the cleansing of officers’ records, which could contain details of their use of force against civilians.
“The public has a right to know,” Walker said. “If there was a controversial beating, we ought to know what action was actually taken. Was it a reprimand? A suspension?”
Walker said that while an officer’s whole personnel file should not be readily available to the public outside of court proceedings, records of disciplinary action should be.
The leaked contracts became publicly accessible last week, when hackers breached the Fraternal Order of Police’s website and put around 2.5GB worth of its files online. These provide a glimpse into the influence of police unions, which Black Lives Matter activists have accused of impeding misconduct investigations, particularly after the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland in April.
The documents date back almost two decades and include agreements from unions such as the Policemen’s Benevolent Association and the International Brotherhood of Police Officers. Many contain numerous recurring clauses that slow down misconduct investigations, prevent public access to complaints and disciplinary records, and enable the destruction of complaints and disciplinary records after a negotiated period of time.
At least as recently as 2007, if an officer in Independence, Missouri, was “involved in a shooting incident”, that officer could not be interrogated for at least 12 hours nor be “treated a suspect” unless local authorities thought there was reasonable suspicion or probable cause that a crime had been committed. This protocol was mandated in the local police union’s contract in a clause specifically designed for “officer-involved shooting investigations”.
Read More
The Killing of Laquan McDonald: What it Could Have Sounded Like if Police Audio Equipment Was Not Sabotaged (Sound Dubbed In)
Chicago Police Hid Mics, Destroyed Dashcams To Block Audio, Records Show:
What the 16 bullets into Laquan McDonald could have sounded like
What the 16 bullets into Laquan McDonald could have sounded like
(sound of gunshots dubbed in)
Chicago Police Hid Mics, Destroyed Dashcams To Block Audio, Records Show
By Mark Konkol and Paul Biasco
Chicago Police Department officers stashed microphones in their squad car glove boxes. They pulled out batteries. Microphone antennas got busted or went missing. And sometimes, dashcam systems didn’t have any microphones at all, DNAinfo Chicago has learned.
Police officials last month blamed the absence of audio in 80 percent of dashcam videos on officer error and “intentional destruction.”
A DNAinfo Chicago review of more than 1,800 police maintenance logs sheds light on the no-sound syndrome plaguing Police Department videos — including its most notorious dashcam case.
Maintenance records of the squad car used by Jason Van Dyke, who shot and killed Laquan McDonald, and his partner, Joseph Walsh, show monthslong delays for two dashcam repairs, including a long wait to fix “intentional damage.”
On June 17, 2014, police technicians reported fixing a dashcam wiring issue in police vehicle No. 6412, the squad shared by Van Dyke and Walsh, about three months after it was reported broken, records show.
A day later, the same vehicle's dashcam system was reported busted again. It took until Oct. 8, 2014, to complete repairs of what technicians deemed “intentional damage,” according to reports.
Just 12 days later, on Oct. 20, 2014, dashcam video recorded from squad car No. 6412 on the night Van Dyke shot and killed McDonald did not record audio. The video that went viral showing Van Dyke killing Laquan was taken from a different squad car, but it, too, had no audio.
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Untreated Bites From Police Dog Led to Death of Inmate, Autopsy Claims — His Death Was Ruled a Homicide
After being bitten numerous times by a police dog, Max Gracia was simply arrested and thrown into a jail cell where his wounds festered.
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| Max Gracia: He was alleged to be involved in an armed robbery. He was, in effect, given a death sentence before his trial. His death was ruled a homicide. |
An autopsy reveals an Orange County Jail inmate died as a result of an untreated infection he received after being bitten by an Orlando police dog during his arrest.
The manner of death was ruled a homicide.
On Aug. 10, the autopsy says Max Gracia, 22, had complained the night before he died that he was unable to get up from his bed.
He was found unresponsive the next morning, and he was taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center, where he died.
Gracia was arrested on Aug. 6 in connection with an armed robbery at the Circle K convenience store on John Young Parkway, near the 408 Expressway.
Orlando police say Gracia ran from them, swimming into Lake Mann, where he was apprehended by a police dog.
According to the the autopsy, his numerous bite marks became infected and sepsis set in.
"Autopsy revealed infection of dog bite wounds with pure cultures of E. Coli obtained from lung and wound swabs," the report indicated. "There was also evidence of systematic shock."
News 6 found out a nurse who works at the Orange County Jail has resigned in the wake of an internal investigation into Gracia's death.Jail spokeswoman Carrie Proudfit says two other medical professionals are also under administrative review.
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The Unarmed Teen Who Was Killed by Chicago Cops: He Called 911 Three Times HIMSELF — Cops 'Helped' Him By Killing Him
The 19-year-old begged to have officers sent to his father's home. Unfortunately, he got his wish. The moment some cops see a black person, their minds stop functioning properly.—Ronald David Jackson
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The moment some cops see a black person, their minds stop functioning properly.
Quintonio LeGrier with his foster mom,
Mary Strenger, at his graduation from Gwendolyn Brooks
College Prep high school in 2014. | Strenger family photo |
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New 911 calls: Quintonio LeGrier Begged That Cops Be Sent
By FRANK MAIN, MICK DUMKE and DAN MIHALOPOULOS
Minutes before police fatally shot 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier, he called 911 multiple times — and begged to have officers sent to his father’s home — but they were not initially dispatched, according to emergency recordings released on Monday.
RELATED STORY: If You Call Cops For Help With A Mentally Ill Family Member, They Might Kill Them — and YOU Too - 18 StoriesAn officer shot LeGrier six times in December after the teenager advanced on officers with a baseball bat, according to police. The officer also accidentally shot neighbor Bettie Jones once in the chest, killing her, too.
The Independent Police Review Authority, which is investigating the shootings, made LeGrier’s three 911 calls public on Monday, as well as one from his father, Antonio.
“During the course of this investigation, the Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communication recently identified and provided IPRA with two additional 911 calls placed by Quintonio LeGrier prior to the incident,” according to IPRA.
Wrongful-death lawsuits have already been filed against the city accusing the officers of misconduct in the shootings. But the newly released 911 recordings raise additional questions about the city’s emergency response to the home in the 4700 block of West Erie on Dec. 26.
Paul Linnee, a national expert on emergency communications, told the Chicago Sun-Times that the dispatchers’ decisions not to send officers in response to the first two 911 calls were “inappropriate.”
“The standard norm is, number one, don’t lose your cool,” added David Bradford, director of the Center for Public Safety at Northwestern University.
Basileios “Bill” Foutris, a lawyer for LeGrier’s father, said Monday: “I found the dispatchers’ conduct was disgusting.”
A spokeswoman for the Office of Emergency Management said late Monday the dispatcher who took LeGrier’s first call is being disciplined for not sending police because LeGrier had indicated his life was in danger.
“Because the individual said his life was being threatened, police should have been dispatched for this call, which is why OEMC has begun disciplinary proceedings against the call taker. Per the collective bargaining agreement, the call taker will remain in service until the discipline process is complete,” OEMC spokeswoman Melissa Stratton said.
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Cops Fire 137 Bullets Into A Car and Kill an Unarmed Man and Woman: 6 Cops Fired—4 Years Later—And None Convicted (Video)
More than 60 police cars took part in the car chase, even though the rules for chases allow only two. After the other officers had stopped shooting at the victims’ car, "Officer" Brelo mounted the hood of the car and fired at least 15 shots through the windshield. Twelve cops fired their weapons and a total of 137 bullets were fired into the car. Timothy Russell was shot 23 times; Malissa Williams, 24 times. Sixty cops were temporarily suspended for their roles. A grand jury indicted only one of the 13 cops placed before it. A judge let that one cop walk.—Ronald David Jackson
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| The Death Car: Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams (inset) |
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6 Cleveland police officers fired for actions in fatal 2012 chase
By Eliott C. McLaughlin
Six Cleveland police officers have been fired in connection with a November 2012 car chase that ended with officers firing 137 bullets at a car, killing Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, said Detective Steve Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association.
Loomis identified the officers as Wilfredo Diaz, Brian Sabolik, Erin O'Donnell, Michael Farley, Chris Ereg and Michael Brelo.
Brelo, the only officer indicted in the incident, allegedly fired 49 of the shots, including 15 from the hood of the car carrying Russell and Williams. He was acquitted of manslaughter and felonious assault last year.
Police in a tweet Tuesday said six other officers were suspended without pay for up to a month and a 13th officer retired last year.
Loomis, a veteran of 23 years, vowed to get the fired officers' jobs back. There is "no rhyme or reason" to the dismissals, and he said he and other officers are scratching their heads because the firings seem random, as if names were picked out of a hat.
"This is nothing but politics. I have every confidence in the world we're going to get their jobs back. I'm not going to stand for it," Loomis said.
How, he asked, can the six officers be fired when a grand jury opted not to indict 12 of the 13 officers and the sole remaining officer, Brelo, was acquitted by Cuyahoga County Judge John P. O'Donnell?
In his May 2015 decision, O'Donnell ruled that Brelo's use of force was permissible because he had reason to believe he was threatened. And it couldn't be proved that Brelo's shots were the fatal ones, so the judge couldn't issue a guilty verdict on the manslaughter charge, he said.
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Mentally Ill Inmate Thrown Into A Steaming Shower and Fried Until His Skin Fell Off — Torture Death Ruled an 'Accident'
The execution-by-frying occurred almost four years ago. State officials just received the autopsy report.
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| Darren Rainey mugshot (Miami- Dade Corrections) |
The death of a mentally ill Florida inmate who begged for his life as his skin was scalded from his body in a locked shower stall has been ruled accidental, according to reports.
According to the Miami Herald, the death of Darren Rainey, 50, in 2012 was attributed to complications stemming from schizophrenia, heart disease and “confinement” in the shower where he was placed as punishment for defecating in his cell and then refusing to clean it up.
A recently released autopsy report from the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office states that Rainey was shoved into a narrow shower stall with the scalding water turned on full blast, eventually leading to his death.
Two hours after being placed in the stall, his lifeless body was found face up with his skin burned so badly that it had shriveled away from his body — a condition medical examiners call “slippage.”
After being removed from the shower, staff administered CPR, with one a nurse registering Rainey’s internal temperature at 102 degrees, well above the normal temperature of 98.6. The autopsy report states that 12 hours after his death, Rainey’s body still had a temperature of about 94 degrees.
According to an inmate working as an orderly in the prison, Rainey could be heard screaming, “I can’t take it no more, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”
Although Rainey’s death occurred almost four years ago, Florida state officials only received the autopsy report last week in a case that had previously been described as “accidental.”
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Jail Deputies Restrain a Man and Then Wach As He Chokes To Death on His Own Vomit (Video)
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| Screen shot from video. |
By The Colorado Independent
New details about Michael Lee Marshall’s final minutes of consciousness can be discerned from videotapes that, after a hunger strike and a lawsuit, the city of Denver released earlier today.
The tapes unfold in three parts. They were shot from two different overhead cameras in Denver’s jail. They’re without audio — 44 minutes of silence. Here’s what happened between 6:28 and 7:12 p.m. on Nov. 11th in the jail’s 4th floor “secure sallyport.”
Marshall walked down the hall shirtless, his laundry in hand. He was 50 years old, 112 lbs. and homeless, a paranoid schizophrenic who had been arrested a few days earlier on a trespassing charge at a Colfax Avenue motel where he sometimes stayed. He was being held on a $100 bond.
After Marshall tried putting his laundry on a shelf and then on a cart in the hall, some papers fell off the cart onto the floor. He walked down the hall, away from the camera. A sheriff’s deputy walked by the fallen papers and toward Marshall. Marshall headed back toward the camera, dragging on the floor what looks like a blanket. Out of it fell several small, unidentifiable items, within full sight of the deputy.
Marshall paced back and forth, stopped to pick something up, then paced more. He kept dragging his blanket and then dropped what looks like a shirt. He sat on a bench, and several more small items fell out of the blanket he was clutching. He bent down to gather them from the floor.
A tall, stocky sheriff’s deputy stepped into the frame and stood watching Marshall, who collected his belongings and held them tightly to his chest.
A second deputy walked by, and a third approached so that two deputies were standing on each side of where Marshall was seated. Both were notably larger than he And both stood for a while, holding their belts, watching him.
Marshall adjusted his sagging pants, then stood up, blanket in hand and tried walking between one of the deputies and the wall in an attempt to get past him.
The deputy reached out, pinned Marshall to the cement block, then swung him back toward the bench. Two other deputies approached and swung Marshall to the floor where the three officers seemed easily to restrain him. A fourth officer walked up and stood over the others as they held Marshall to the floor — apparently without much physical effort — for about four minutes.
A view of Marshall himself is hidden from the camera until the deputies dragged him a bit more into the frame. There’s a quick glimpse of his leg, unmoving. Several deputies leaned and stood over him for several minutes. At this point, it’s unclear from the video if they were restraining him, giving him medical care, or both. During this time, a few lights seem to have flashed out of the camera’s view. A few minutes later, Marshall’s foot moves and a deputy leans in to hold it still.
At one point, 13 minutes into the video, at least five uniformed officers and three staffers who appear to be medical personnel were leaning over Marshall. The medics then stepped away, leaving five deputies still restraining Marshall on the floor. They appear to have used some force because the deputy harnessing Marshall’s foot — or feet — kept wiping sweat from his brow.
Seventeen minutes into the video, a deputy approached from down the hall with what looks like the cloth “spit hood” that, according to the autopsy, was placed over Marshall’s mouth. About eighteen minutes in, the crew of deputies lifted Marshall into a restraining chair and out of view of the first camera.
The second camera shows that deputies spent about three minutes strapping Marshall’s seemingly limp shoulders and arms into the chair while as many as ten uniformed officers surrounded him. Marshall sat lifeless in the chair for about five minutes while the deputies, for the most part, stood around and watched.
Finally, a deputy shook Marshall’s chest in what looked like an attempt to wake him. A medic apparently found Marshall had no pulse. Deputies started unstrapping Marshall from the chair — slowly at first and then faster, as if for the first time deeming it a medical emergency.
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Georgia Cop Who Killed Naked Mentally Ill Man Indicted for Murder — Cop Claimed He Feared for His Life
Cops get extra special treatment in Georgia: accused cops get access to the grand jury’s meeting, as well as the opportunity to address the panel without the threat of cross-examination or a rebuttal by prosecutors.
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| Anthony Hill: Killed for losing his mind and walking unarmed toward a cop while naked. |
By ALAN BLINDER
A white police officer was indicted here Thursday on six counts, including felony murder, in the fatal shooting last year of an unarmed black man who was naked and described as acting in a bizarre manner at an apartment complex near Atlanta.
The indictment of Officer Robert Olsen of the DeKalb County Police Department came about two weeks after the district attorney said he would ask a grand jury to pursue criminal charges in the death of Anthony Hill, a 27-year-old Air Force veteran.
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| "Officer" Robert Olsen. |
Although Mr. James had announced this month that he would seek an indictment, prosecutors faced an especially complex challenge because of the legal protections that are guaranteed to law enforcement officers in Georgia. Those safeguards, which are among the country’s most extensive, give accused officers access to the grand jury’s meeting, as well as the opportunity to address the panel without the threat of cross-examination or a rebuttal by prosecutors.
Officer Olsen, who could not be reached for comment, spoke to the grand jury. He has not publicly discussed the shooting on March 9, seven months to the day after a police killing in Ferguson, Mo., that spurred large protests and prompted a continuing national debate about race and law enforcement practices.
In an email Thursday night, Officer Olsen’s lawyer, Don Samuel, said he was “disappointed in the decision of the grand jury.”
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Another Killer Cop Horror Story: Cops Sicced Dog on Man and Left Him Hogtied Face Down Until He Died — Lawsuit
Troy Goode was freaking out on acid. Instead of helping him, the police response left him dead.
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| Troy Goode with friend. |
By Claire Bernish
Troy Goode had taken LSD at a concert he and his wife attended in Southaven, Mississippi, but must have been having a bad trip and began acting erratically, running around the parking lot. Though the Memphis, Tennessee, man’s behavior wasn’t violent or threatening to anyone, someone felt it necessary — likely out of misguided concern — to summon the police. That fateful decision by a stranger cost Goode his life.
RELATED STORY: Cops Use Police Dogs as a Torture and Terror Device - Three Horrifying Stories (Videos)Inept police arrived on scene and, as bystander video footage revealed, forcefully hogtied Goode, placing him face-down — a position known to be potentially deadly — and loaded him onto a stretcher and into a waiting ambulance.
“They hogtied him. That’s such a bad idea,” one witness can be overheard saying in that footage. “He’s currently face-down, on the stretcher,” says another. Shortly after that, a third bystander — who could not have imagined how truly portentous her statement would be — advised her companion, “Video it, just in case he dies.”
Tragically, an hour after arriving at the hospital, that’s exactly what happened.
Southaven Police maintain the absurd and unscientific claim Goode’s death was caused by his consumption of LSD. A Mississippi medical examiner’s report lists “complications of LSD toxicity” as the cause of death and “accidental” as the manner, according to MS News Now.
Police have also claimed Goode was combative, threatening officers and resisting arrest, and his violent behavior continued inside the ambulance. Southaven Mayor Darren Musselwhite even issued a statement in support of this claim, going as far as saying Goode never said he couldn’t breathe — despite the bêtise of such a claim. Goode’s physical and mental distress was clearly evidenced in the video and backed up by audio of bystanders’ narration of the incident.
As the Free Thought Project previously reported, his friends, family, and an independent autopsy tell a different story, saying Goode — who suffered from asthma — was denied his inhaler, and it was police’ excessive force and use of a dangerous restraint that killed him.
“He was suffocating. His heart[rate] increased into what is called tachycardia. There is no scientific basis to attribute his death to LSD,” said attorney Tim Edwards in November. “This was lethal force, putting someone in a prolonged hogtied position … The toxicology report … rules out any drug-related causes. That takes that off the table. LSD does not cause heart failure.”
On Wednesday, as they promised in November, Goode’s family filed a federal lawsuitagainst Southaven Police, the City of Southaven, several individual police officers and medical workers, the hospital where he was treated, and others — citing the violation of his civil rights.
According to the lawsuit, Goode’s treatment by police was nothing short of torture. In regards to the police and their use of the K-9, the lawsuit exposes downright sadistic and inhumane behavior by the officers:
Troy approached the K-9 unit patrol car and opened the door in an attempt to voluntarily submit to police authority and enter the patrol car to be taken into custody.
When Troy opened the door to the patrol car the police dog, a Belgian Malinois named “Weasel”, got out of the vehicle but was not aggressive.
Defendant Scallorn grabbed the police dog by the collar, restraining it and preventing it from attacking Troy.
Troy, who was an animal lover, began to talk in friendly terms to the dog.
At that point and time, one or more of the Defendants willfully, intentionally, wantonly, and with reckless disregard for Decedent’s well-being commanded the police dog to attack Troy.
Defendant Scallorn intentionally released the police dog to allow it to attack Troy.
Southaven Police Chief Tom Long recently announced his retirement as of January 22nd, after 26 years in that post and 38 years in law enforcement. Long, 61, “is leaving a department where he started as the first officer hired by the city,” reported theAssociated Press. Of course, the timing is purely coincidental.
Though the family of Troy Goode is seeking a nominal $150,000 in damages, the true motivations for the lawsuit appear more altruistic. They have requested class-action status for the claim — an apparent effort to ensure no other family has to face such a tragedy from needless use of force by police.
Reprinted with permission from Free Thought Project
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