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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 shootings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label police shootings. Show all posts
Rebellion Breaks Out After Cops Shoot Teen In Salt Lake City, Utah — He Had A Broom Handle (Video)
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| Abdi Mohamed. |
By Don Crothers
A teenager was shot four times by police at about 8 p.m. Friday, in the Rio Grande District of Salt Lake City, Utah, according to a report from Fox 13, and riots have broken out in response. The victim remains unidentified, but witnesses indicate that he is 16.
While details are still sketchy, it is alleged that police were responding to an unrelated incident when they received reports of a fight between a teenager and an older man. The teenager was wielding a broomstick.
According to one witness, Selam Mohammed, the police ordered the teenager to drop the broomstick, but shot him before he could comply with the order.
“They told him to put it down, once.”
“[The police] started shooting him as soon as he turned around.”
Mohammed said that the victim was his friend and confirmed his age, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.
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The state of the teenager’s wounds is currently unknown, but Mohammed indicated that he had been shot in the chest and stomach.
“The police said, ‘Drop it’ once, then they shot him four times. We were trying to break it up before the police even came, but the police ran in on foot and pulled their guns out already. They already had them, like, as soon as he was running he was already grabbing for his gun, not even trying to Tase him or anything… He said ‘Drop it’ [then] ‘Boom, boom!’ four times.”
Police have confirmed that it was an officer-involved shooting and that two officers were involved, and the victim was rushed to hospital.
Read More
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.
Read More
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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Parasitic Ferguson Judge Behind 'Make Money Off Blacks With Fines' Program Owes $170,000 in Unpaid Taxes
Ferguson's Official Criminals Running For Cover: Judge, City Manager and Police Chief Resign — What About The Prosecutor?
All Arrest Warrants Issued In Ferguson Prior to 2015 Withdrawn — Ticketing Blacks Was Key Source of Funds
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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Drug Planting Cover Up Gets Brutal Cop A Light Prison Sentence: Drug Planting Caught On Tape Not Mentioned in Charge or Sentence (Video)
The District Attorney, the Judge and the Media engaged in a drug planting cover up right before your eyes...
"Officer" William Melendez was recorded beating an innocent motorist and then planting drugs in his car. He had a past record of brutality and planting evidence but was only cited for brutality when his mere 13-month prison sentence (with an alleged possibility of up to 10 years) was announced. It seems a good bet that the drug planting was not mentioned because to do so would have called into question every drug arrest Melendez and his corrupt cop cronies were involved in.—Ronald David Jackson
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| Floyd Dent, the victim of the beating, arrest and attempting drug framing, passed a lie detector test and his fingerprints weren’t found on the baggie of white powder that was found in his car. |
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Ex-Cop William Melendez Gets Up to 10 Years for Beating of Michigan Driver Floyd Dent
By Erik Ortiz
The ex-Michigan cop convicted in the beating of an unarmed driver during a traffic stop last year was sentenced Tuesday to 13 months to 10 years in prison.
__________
Melendez and His Accomplices Beat a Motorist for No Reason,
then Melendez Plants Drugs in the Victim's Car
then Melendez Plants Drugs in the Victim's Car
__________
William Melendez, 47, was caught on police dashboard camera in the January 2015 assault against driver Floyd Dent, who was hit 16 times and choked so hard that he testified he passed out.
RELATED STORY: Crazy, Corrupt, Brutal, Racist Cops and Other 'Public Servants' - Get Fired or Run Off, Only to Be Rehired Somewhere Else — And Inflicted on Blacks
Melendez during his hearing was also sentenced to 90 days on a misconduct in office charge. He was already given 85 days credit for time served, reported NBC affiliate WDIV.
From the bench Tuesday, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Vonda Evans admonished Melendez for an incident that seemed to spiral out of control from a simple traffic stop.
RELATED STORY: Cop Charged With Abuse - Indictment Says Nothing About His Drug Planting Caught On Tape — They'd Have To Reopen All of His Cases"You were so into your bravado that you forgot the eye of justice was recording you," Evans said. "You knew better. You were better trained than any of those officers out there. You were more experienced."
Meledenz, who was fired from the Inkster Police Department last April, was found guilty in November of misconduct in office and assault with intent to do great bodily harm.
The jury, however, found him not guilty of a separate count of strangulation. The jury had nine black jurors and seven white jurors — four of those jurors were selected as alternates, although it was unclear which ones.
Dent, a 58-year-old Ford Motor Co. worker, was initially charged with driving on a suspended license, possession of cocaine and assaulting or resisting a police officer. But those charges were later dropped.
Dent has maintained police planted the cocaine on him.
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)
Cops in San Francisco So Racist — They're Forced to Recite An Anti-Racism Pledge
By AP
San Francisco police officers are being asked to combat racism in the ranks and take a pledge to turn in colleagues displaying intolerant behavior, such as slurs and jokes targeting people of color, gays and women.
The pledge is part of a broader public relations campaign by the embattled police department to repair frayed relations with minority neighborhoods and community activists.
The campaign comes amid growing tensions between police and black communities that are shaking up departments across the country and have led to the dismissal of top brass in some cities, including Chicago. Politically progressive San Francisco is not immune from the unrest. The Dec. 2 shooting of a young black man clutching a kitchen knife by five officers has increased racial tensions and sparked calls for the police chief's removal.
So far, San Francisco's mayor has stood behind the chief amid the emergence of racist text messages exchanged among several officers and a judge's decision that he failed to punish the officers in timely fashion.
Police say Mario Woods, 26, had stabbed a stranger earlier that day, ignored commands to drop the knife and shook off blasts of tear gas and shots from a bean bag gun before officers opened fire.
Police say only one of the five officers involved was white, but protests over the shooting persists. Mayor Ed Lee has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate.
Chief Greg Suhr said the pledge and the "Not on My Watch" campaign had been in the works long before the Woods shooting, but the incident gave the project new urgency. Several angry protests were organized in the rough neighborhood where Woods died. And people demanding the chief's dismissal disrupted the mayor's inauguration on Jan. 8 and briefly shut down the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Jan. 18.
Yulanda Williams, who leads a minority police officers group, helped initiate the pledge after she found that a white colleague used a black slur in text messages to other officers complaining about her promotion to sergeant. Other text messages exchanged among Williams' colleagues contained racist and homophobic insults and slurs.
"I will not tolerate hate or bigotry in our community or from my fellow officers," the seven-sentence pledge states in part. "I will confront intolerance and report any such conduct without question or pause."
Read More
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 |
____________
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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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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Rahm Emanuel's Laquan McDonald Murder Cover Up — Cops Threatened Witnesses, Falsified Their Accounts
Another witness, a truck driver who was at a nearby Burger King, told the attorneys that he and two other witnesses, a woman and her friend who both saw the shooting, were put in police cars, taken to a station and interviewed for hours in separate rooms.
"He kept describing it and he said the police were visibly angry with him and arguing with him about what happened, saying, 'That's not what happened,' " Robbins said. "He'd say, 'Well, that's what I saw.' They said, 'No, you're wrong.' "
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Mayor Rahm Emanuel:
The video tape was suppressed, witnesses were intimidated, reports fabricated, and an indictment was delayed for over a year — all in an effort to safeguard his reelection. |
At least three witnesses to the Laquan McDonald police killing were questioned for hours, threatened by officers and ordered to change their accounts to match the official Chicago police version of the shooting, the attorneys for the teen's estate say.
The allegations are contained in more than 3,000 pages of recently released documents related to the case. The attorneys also allege that police officers up the chain of command fabricated witness accounts to support the way officers at the scene described the October 20, 2014, shooting as justified.
"It's not just the officers on the street," attorney Jeffrey Neslund told CNN. "It's a lieutenant, a sergeant and detectives -- and the lengths they went to justify what simply was not true."
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The woman, Neslund alleged, was so appalled when shots rang out that she yelled at Van Dyke: "Stop shooting.""There's a reason they kept us there 'til 4 a.m.," the woman told McDonald's family, according to Neslund. "One officer said he was going to get me."When the witnesses refused to change their statements, Robbins wrote, "the investigating officers simply fabricated civilian accounts in the reports."
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CNN contacted Neslund and Michael Robbins after the city released the documents to the news media in response to multiple Freedom of Information Act requests.
Asked if they stood by the accusations they made in letters to the city's corporation counsel last March, Robbins said, "Absolutely."
"You have a false narrative put out by police," he said, "outright lies to cover up an illegal shooting, corroborated by other officers."
CNN asked the Chicago Police Department for a reaction to the allegations. "This is the first time I'm hearing of that allegation," spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. "But this is why we want an independent investigation to look at every fact. But unfortunately, we're not able to comment on any specific incident."
CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson said the allegations made by Neslund and Robbins are a significant development.
"In the event that it's true, you have multiple underlying charges: intimidating witnesses, falsifying public records and you have a conspiracy that more than one person was involved," Jackson said. "This has the potential of taking down a lot of people in that police department."
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People Are Waking Up to the Dark Side of American Policing, and Cops Don’t Like It One Bit
Rants by pro-police organizations against any and all criticisms of the police demonstrates a police state mindset that threatens us all.
If you’ve been listening to various police agencies and their supporters, then you know what the future holds: anarchy is coming -- and it’s all the fault of activists.
In May, a Wall Street Journal op-ed warned of a “new nationwide crime wave” thanks to “intense agitation against American police departments” over the previous year. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie went further. Talking recently with the host of CBS’s Face the Nation, the Republican presidential hopeful asserted that the Black Lives Matter movement wasn’t about reform but something far more sinister. “They’ve been chanting in the streets for the murder of police officers,” he insisted. Even the nation’s top cop, FBI Director James Comey, weighed in at the University of Chicago Law School, speaking of “a chill wind that has blown through American law enforcement over the last year.”
According to these figures and others like them, lawlessness has been sweeping the nation as the so-called Ferguson effect spreads. Criminals have been emboldened as police officers are forced to think twice about doing their jobs for fear of the infamy of starring in the next viral video. The police have supposedly become the targets of assassins intoxicated by “anti-cop rhetoric,” just as departments are being stripped of the kind of high-powered equipment they need to protect officers and communities. Even their funding streams have, it’s claimed, come under attack as anti-cop bias has infected Washington, D.C. Senator Ted Cruz caught the spirit of that critique byconvening a Senate subcommittee hearing to which he gave the title, “The War on Police: How the Federal Government Undermines State and Local Law Enforcement.” According to him, the federal government, including the president and attorney general, has been vilifying the police, who are now being treated as if they, not the criminals, were the enemy.
Beyond the storm of commentary and criticism, however, quite a different reality presents itself. In the simplest terms, there is no war on the police. Violent attacks against police officers remain at historic lows, even though approximately 1,000 people have been killed by the police this year nationwide. In just the past few weeks, videos have been released of problematic fatal police shootings in San Francisco and Chicago.
While it’s too soon to tell whether there has been an uptick in violent crime in the post-Ferguson period, no evidence connects any possible increase to the phenomenon of police violence being exposed to the nation. What is taking place and what the police and their supporters are largely reacting to is a modest push for sensible law enforcement reforms from groups as diverse asCampaign Zero, Koch Industries, the Cato Institute, The Leadership Conference, and the ACLU (my employer). Unfortunately, as the rhetoric ratchets up, many police agencies and organizations are increasingly resistant to any reforms, forgetting whom they serve and ignoring constitutional limits on what they can do.
Indeed, a closer look at law enforcement arguments against commonsense reforms like independently investigating police violence, demilitarizing police forces, or ending “for-profit policing” reveals a striking disregard for concerns of just about any sort when it comes to brutality and abuse. What this “debate” has revealed, in fact, is a mainstream policing mindset ready to manufacture fear without evidence and promote the belief that American civil rights and liberties are actually an impediment to public safety. In the end, such law enforcement arguments subvert the very idea that the police are there to serve the community and should be under civilian control.
And that, when you come right down to it, is the logic of the police state.
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