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GESTAPO USA
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april 25, 2019
MICHAEL WOOD: We have a culture that from the beginning has been disproportionate and been oppressive to persons of color, and women, and other minorities. We have a system in which criminal justice is an oxymoron. We have a society that trumps up the second amendment as this big right that we have and that right is to have this weaponry so cops can be killed. That’s literally the purpose of the second amendment. And we have state sanctioned murder all over the country with a blue wall of silence and justice not being done. So I’m completely baffled by why anyone is surprised by all of this.
Why Cops Kill Black People: Research Suggests a Troubling Pattern of 'Retaliatory Violence'
Chauncey DeVega / Salon
The story of race in America is a story of change, and a story of things remaining the same. To measure our progress, or lack thereof, all we need to do is to look at how America's police treat the public, and look in turn at who fills the prison cells -- and all too often the cemeteries.
headlines
*We found 85,000 cops who’ve been investigated for misconduct. Now you can read their records.
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*NYPD cop arrested a random black businessman on false charges just so he could earn overtime: lawyer
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*BYSTANDERS SCREAM IN HORROR AS FLORIDA COPS BRUTALIZE BLACK TEENS
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*Five Ohio Jail Officers Charged After Strapping mother of Three to Restraint Chair, Then Pepper-Spraying Her
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Boulder cops arrest black man for refusing to drop cane he uses due to seizures
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Criminal Justice Legislation Will Force New York Prosecutors to Disclose More Evidence, Sooner
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*'Police need to find a better way:' Officials want answers about black teen's traffic stop
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*Damning Internal Affairs Report Reveals Officers Sat In Car For 9 Minutes While Man Mauled To Death By Dog
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*Chicago cops terrorize innocent black family after bursting into 4-year-old’s birthday party with guns drawn
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*Two Indiana Police Officers Face Federal Charges in Videotaped Beating of Handcuffed Man
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*'The victim becomes the criminal': how prosecutors vilify those killed by police
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*Probe Uncovers Pattern of Racial Issues Within Detroit Police’s 6th Precinct, Calling It Their ‘Dirty Little Secret’
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*NYU Professor Accuses NYPD, Transit Officials of Using Broken MetroCard Machines As Excuse to Target Black Commuters (ARTICLE BELOW)
*Two NYPD Cops Coerced Sex With a Teen in Their Custody — and Prosecutors Just Dropped Rape Charges
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Former Palm Beach officer found guilty of manslaughter, attempted murder
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*Chicago cop files ‘whistleblower’ claim after CPD asked him to lie about shooting of unarmed teen: lawsuit
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*DOJ: No civil rights charge in deadly Tulsa police shooting
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Exclusive: video shows Portland officers made deal with far-right group leader
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*GESTAPO usa FUNNIES(below)
We found 85,000 cops who’ve been investigated for misconduct. Now you can read their records.
USA TODAY is leading a national effort to obtain and publish disciplinary and misconduct records for thousands of police officers.
John Kelly and Mark Nichols, USA TODAY
4/25/19
At least 85,000 law enforcement officers across the USA have been investigated or disciplined for misconduct over the past decade, an investigation by USA TODAY Network found.
Officers have beaten members of the public, planted evidence and used their badges to harass women. They have lied, stolen, dealt drugs, driven drunk and abused their spouses.
Despite their role as public servants, the men and women who swear an oath to keep communities safe can generally avoid public scrutiny for their misdeeds.
The records of their misconduct are filed away, rarely seen by anyone outside their departments. Police unions and their political allies have worked to put special protections in place ensuring some records are shielded from public view, or even destroyed.
Reporters from USA TODAY, its 100-plus affiliated newsrooms and the nonprofit Invisible Institute in Chicago have spent more than a year creating the biggest collection of police misconduct records.
Obtained from thousands of state agencies, prosecutors, police departments and sheriffs, the records detail at least 200,000 incidents of alleged misconduct, much of it previously unreported. The records obtained include more than 110,000 internal affairs investigations by hundreds of individual departments and more than 30,000 officers who were decertified by 44 state oversight agencies.
Search the list of more than 30,000 police officers banned by 44 states.
Among the findings:
The level of oversight varies widely from state to state. Georgia and Florida decertified thousands of police officers for everything from crimes to questions about their fitness to serve; other states banned almost none.
That includes Maryland, home to the Baltimore Police Department, which regularly has been in the news for criminal behavior by police. Over nearly a decade, Maryland revoked the certifications of just four officers.
We’re making those records public
The records USA TODAY and its partners gathered include tens of thousands of internal investigations, lawsuit settlements and secret separation deals.
They include names of at least 5,000 police officers whose credibility as witnesses has been called into question. These officers have been placed on Brady lists, created to track officers whose actions must be disclosed to defendants if their testimony is relied upon to prosecute someone.
USA TODAY plans to publish many of those records to give the public an opportunity to examine their police department and the broader issue of police misconduct, as well as to help identify decertified officers who continue to work in law enforcement.
Seth Stoughton, who worked as a police officer for 14 years and teaches law at the University of South Carolina, said expanding public access to those kinds of records is critical to keep good cops employed and bad cops unemployed.
“No one is in a position to assess whether an officer candidate can do the job well and the way that we expect the job to be done better than the officer’s former employer,” Stoughton said.
“Officers are public servants. They police in our name," he said. There is a "strong public interest in identifying how officers are using their public authority.”
Dan Hils, president of the Cincinnati Police Department’s branch of the Fraternal Order of Policemen union, said people should consider there are more than 750,000 law enforcement officers in the country when looking at individual misconduct data.
“The scrutiny is way tighter on police officers than most folks, and that’s why sometimes you see high numbers of misconduct cases,” Hils said. “But I believe that policemen tend to be more honest and more trustworthy than the average citizen.”
Hils said he has no issue with USA TODAY publishing public records of conduct, saying it is the news media’s “right and responsibility to investigate police and the authority of government. You’re supposed to be a watchdog.”
The first set of records USA TODAY is releasing is an exclusive nationwide database of about 30,000 people whom state governments banned from the profession by revoking their certification to be law enforcement officers.
For years, a private police organization has assembled such a list from more than 40 states and encourages police agencies to screen new hires. The list is kept secret from anyone outside law enforcement.
USA TODAY obtained the names of banned officers from 44 states by filing requests under state sunshine laws.
The information includes the officers’ names, the department they worked for when the state revoked their certification and – in most cases – the reasons why.
The list is incomplete because of the absence of records from states such as California, which has the largest number of law enforcement officers in the USA.[...]
Officers have beaten members of the public, planted evidence and used their badges to harass women. They have lied, stolen, dealt drugs, driven drunk and abused their spouses.
Despite their role as public servants, the men and women who swear an oath to keep communities safe can generally avoid public scrutiny for their misdeeds.
The records of their misconduct are filed away, rarely seen by anyone outside their departments. Police unions and their political allies have worked to put special protections in place ensuring some records are shielded from public view, or even destroyed.
Reporters from USA TODAY, its 100-plus affiliated newsrooms and the nonprofit Invisible Institute in Chicago have spent more than a year creating the biggest collection of police misconduct records.
Obtained from thousands of state agencies, prosecutors, police departments and sheriffs, the records detail at least 200,000 incidents of alleged misconduct, much of it previously unreported. The records obtained include more than 110,000 internal affairs investigations by hundreds of individual departments and more than 30,000 officers who were decertified by 44 state oversight agencies.
Search the list of more than 30,000 police officers banned by 44 states.
Among the findings:
- Most misconduct involves routine infractions, but the records reveal tens of thousands of cases of serious misconduct and abuse. They include 22,924 investigations of officers using excessive force, 3,145 allegations of rape, child molestation and other sexual misconduct and 2,307 cases of domestic violence by officers.
- Dishonesty is a frequent problem. The records document at least 2,227 instances of perjury, tampering with evidence or witnesses or falsifying reports. There were 418 reports of officers obstructing investigations, most often when they or someone they knew were targets.
- Less than 10% of officers in most police forces get investigated for misconduct. Yet some officers are consistently under investigation. Nearly 2,500 have been investigated on 10 or more charges. Twenty faced 100 or more allegations yet kept their badge for years.
The level of oversight varies widely from state to state. Georgia and Florida decertified thousands of police officers for everything from crimes to questions about their fitness to serve; other states banned almost none.
That includes Maryland, home to the Baltimore Police Department, which regularly has been in the news for criminal behavior by police. Over nearly a decade, Maryland revoked the certifications of just four officers.
We’re making those records public
The records USA TODAY and its partners gathered include tens of thousands of internal investigations, lawsuit settlements and secret separation deals.
They include names of at least 5,000 police officers whose credibility as witnesses has been called into question. These officers have been placed on Brady lists, created to track officers whose actions must be disclosed to defendants if their testimony is relied upon to prosecute someone.
USA TODAY plans to publish many of those records to give the public an opportunity to examine their police department and the broader issue of police misconduct, as well as to help identify decertified officers who continue to work in law enforcement.
Seth Stoughton, who worked as a police officer for 14 years and teaches law at the University of South Carolina, said expanding public access to those kinds of records is critical to keep good cops employed and bad cops unemployed.
“No one is in a position to assess whether an officer candidate can do the job well and the way that we expect the job to be done better than the officer’s former employer,” Stoughton said.
“Officers are public servants. They police in our name," he said. There is a "strong public interest in identifying how officers are using their public authority.”
Dan Hils, president of the Cincinnati Police Department’s branch of the Fraternal Order of Policemen union, said people should consider there are more than 750,000 law enforcement officers in the country when looking at individual misconduct data.
“The scrutiny is way tighter on police officers than most folks, and that’s why sometimes you see high numbers of misconduct cases,” Hils said. “But I believe that policemen tend to be more honest and more trustworthy than the average citizen.”
Hils said he has no issue with USA TODAY publishing public records of conduct, saying it is the news media’s “right and responsibility to investigate police and the authority of government. You’re supposed to be a watchdog.”
The first set of records USA TODAY is releasing is an exclusive nationwide database of about 30,000 people whom state governments banned from the profession by revoking their certification to be law enforcement officers.
For years, a private police organization has assembled such a list from more than 40 states and encourages police agencies to screen new hires. The list is kept secret from anyone outside law enforcement.
USA TODAY obtained the names of banned officers from 44 states by filing requests under state sunshine laws.
The information includes the officers’ names, the department they worked for when the state revoked their certification and – in most cases – the reasons why.
The list is incomplete because of the absence of records from states such as California, which has the largest number of law enforcement officers in the USA.[...]
NYPD cop arrested a random black businessman on false charges just so he could earn overtime: lawyer
Tana Ganeva - raw story
22 APR 2019 AT 10:56 ET
An NYPD cop who accused a black investment adviser of pickpocketing an undercover cop has not faced disciplinary action, the New York Daily News reports.
In 2016, then-58-year-old Darrell Williams was at the 125th St. and Lexington Ave. subway station. Officer Xavier Gonzalez accused him of picking the pockets of an undercover cop, even though Williams, was dressed in a suit with a briefcase in one hand and his phone in the other. He was on his way to meet a client.
Gonzalez claimed in arrest documents that paint shop clerk Anthony Osei, who was on the train, had said Williams stole his phone. But Osei told The News that never happened.
“I defended him (Williams) because it was the right thing to do,” Osei told the News.
“A cop came up to me and said, ‘Did he take your phone?’ I said, ‘No, I have my phones and wallet.’ Two weeks later, I get a call from the prosecutor. I told them the same thing.”
The NYPD has not yet issued a comment. Williams’ lawyer observed that Gonzales was likely trying to make more overtime, where an arrest towards the end of an officers’ shift leads to extra pay.
“The evidence is overwhelming that Gonzalez simply fabricated the allegations against my client, Darryl Williams, near the end of Gonzalez’s tour of duty so that Gonzalez could earn overtime,” Williams’ lawyer Joel Berger told the News.
According to the News, Gonzalez was paid $35,871.41 in OT in 2018 and $31,185.54 in OT in 2017, above his $94,000 annual salary.
In 2016, then-58-year-old Darrell Williams was at the 125th St. and Lexington Ave. subway station. Officer Xavier Gonzalez accused him of picking the pockets of an undercover cop, even though Williams, was dressed in a suit with a briefcase in one hand and his phone in the other. He was on his way to meet a client.
Gonzalez claimed in arrest documents that paint shop clerk Anthony Osei, who was on the train, had said Williams stole his phone. But Osei told The News that never happened.
“I defended him (Williams) because it was the right thing to do,” Osei told the News.
“A cop came up to me and said, ‘Did he take your phone?’ I said, ‘No, I have my phones and wallet.’ Two weeks later, I get a call from the prosecutor. I told them the same thing.”
The NYPD has not yet issued a comment. Williams’ lawyer observed that Gonzales was likely trying to make more overtime, where an arrest towards the end of an officers’ shift leads to extra pay.
“The evidence is overwhelming that Gonzalez simply fabricated the allegations against my client, Darryl Williams, near the end of Gonzalez’s tour of duty so that Gonzalez could earn overtime,” Williams’ lawyer Joel Berger told the News.
According to the News, Gonzalez was paid $35,871.41 in OT in 2018 and $31,185.54 in OT in 2017, above his $94,000 annual salary.
Bystanders scream in horror as Florida cops brutalize black teens
Travis Gettys - raw story
19 APR 2019 AT 12:58 ET
Broward County sheriff's deputy roughs up teen (WSVN)
Florida deputies were caught on video roughing up teenagers outside a McDonald’s near their school.
Cell phone video footage shows Broward County sheriff’s deputies pepper spraying one teen and the slamming his head against the pavement and punching him, reported WSVN-TV.
“What are you doing?” students shouted in the video. “He’s bleeding!”
The teens had gathered in the fast food restaurant’s parking lot to watch a fight set for Thursday afternoon, and deputies responded to complaints about the crowd.
The deputy shown in the video claims the teen stepped back into a defensive pose, and he feared the teen would strike him.
“Is that a fair way to treat a 13-, 14-year-old, however old he may be?” said witness Jordan Payne. “That’s a grown man. You can’t treat a little kid like that, come on, now. Punching him while he’s on the floor? At that point, you already had him detained, why go further?”
Two teens were taken into custody late Thursday as juveniles, and a third teen was taken to a hospital for evaluation after he was blasted with pepper spray.
He was released to his family after a judge warned him to stay away from the McDonald’s and not to hang around the same group of teens.
The teen faces trespassing and resisting arrest without violence charges after downgrading the original charge, aggravated assault on an officer.
The Sheriff’s Office is investigating the incident but has not issued a statement.
Cell phone video footage shows Broward County sheriff’s deputies pepper spraying one teen and the slamming his head against the pavement and punching him, reported WSVN-TV.
“What are you doing?” students shouted in the video. “He’s bleeding!”
The teens had gathered in the fast food restaurant’s parking lot to watch a fight set for Thursday afternoon, and deputies responded to complaints about the crowd.
The deputy shown in the video claims the teen stepped back into a defensive pose, and he feared the teen would strike him.
“Is that a fair way to treat a 13-, 14-year-old, however old he may be?” said witness Jordan Payne. “That’s a grown man. You can’t treat a little kid like that, come on, now. Punching him while he’s on the floor? At that point, you already had him detained, why go further?”
Two teens were taken into custody late Thursday as juveniles, and a third teen was taken to a hospital for evaluation after he was blasted with pepper spray.
He was released to his family after a judge warned him to stay away from the McDonald’s and not to hang around the same group of teens.
The teen faces trespassing and resisting arrest without violence charges after downgrading the original charge, aggravated assault on an officer.
The Sheriff’s Office is investigating the incident but has not issued a statement.
Five Ohio Jail Officers Charged After Strapping mother of Three to Restraint Chair, Then Pepper-Spraying Her
By Tanasia Kenney - atlanta black star
April 14, 2019
What began as a Cleveland, Ohio, woman’s simple request to let someone know she was in lockup quickly spiraled into a brutal attack by several Cuyahoga County Jail officers. Now, those same officers are facing charges.
Chantelle Glass was booked last summer into the Cuyahoga jail, where officers strapped her to a restraint chair, punched her, and unloaded half a can of pepper spray into her face. Glass, who suffer from asthma and could hardly breathe, said she thought the ordeal might kill her.
“That day, I thought I was going to die,” she told Cleveland.com, recalling how the guards left her tied to the chair as she sat in a small, dark room for nearly two hours, the pepper spray still filling her lungs.
“I sat in that cell I prayed to God that I wouldn’t die because I couldn’t breathe,” Glass added. “I prayed that I wouldn’t die there.”
Cpl. Idris-Farid Clark and Officer Robert Marsh were among the five jail officers indicted Monday in the violent attack against Glass. Both men are accused of strapping down the mother of three and assaulting her.
According to Cleveland.com, Clark is charged with is charged with second-degree felony assault and misdemeanor counts of assault, interfering with civil rights and unlawful restraint while Clark faces misdemeanor charges of assault, interfering with civil rights and unlawful restraint.
Marsh was arrested by police Monday and was scheduled for arraignment Tuesday, along with two other corrections officers. Clark turned himself in Thursday and was released from the same jail at which he works on a $5,000 bond.
The charges come some eight months after the July 16 attack, and Glass expressed frustration at the fact that the two were allowed to keep their jobs at the jail. Clark and Marsh were both placed on restrictive duty in August but remained on the job until April 9, when they were placed on paid administrative leave, the news site reported.
“I don’t understand why they were still working,” said Glass, 26. “It’s unjust they were still working and still getting a paychecks.”
The young mother found herself behind bars last July after her mom called local police after she and her sister had gotten into a heated argument. Both women were booked into the Cuyahoga County Jail, but Glass was forced to stay because of a warrant stemming from an unpaid traffic ticket from two years prior.
After being placed in a holding cell, Glass said she requested a phone call to let someone know she was in jail. She said the corrections officers refused, however, after she refused a guard’s demands to pick up a spoon.
That’s when a female officer reportedly told Glass, “Well, I’ll just have you maced and strapped to a chair.’ ” The threat only angered Glass, who began pounding on her jail cell.
She then called for a supervisor, Cpl. Clark, to speak with about making her phone call. Clark asked Glass if she would stop banging, to which the young woman agreed, but only if she was allowed her phone call. That’s when she said the officer placed her in handcuffs and called for backup.
Things took a turn for the worse when Marsh approached and immediately began roughing her up. Glass recalled the officers ordering her to the restraint chair as they exchanged insults, and accused Marsh of shoving her head. Once she was strapped in, that’s when Marsh struck her again.
What followed was a burning stream of pepper spray by Clark, who held the can about foot away from Glass’ face, according to court records. The ordeal only lasted about seven seconds, but Glass said it felt like several minutes.
“Everything was burning,” she told Cleveland.com. “I had bad aches and my eyes hurt. And I still didn’t get my phone call.”
Despite alerting officers of her struggle to breathe, Glass said she never received any medical treatment. Instead, she said guards locked her in a tiny cell by herself, doused her with water and made her sit there for two hours.
After her release two days later, an investigator at the jail sought Glass out and told her he was filing the report after watching security footage of the incident. Glass, who was never charged in the incident with her sister, said she is now mulling legal action against the county.
“I just want to see justice done,” she told the news site. “I’m going to be at every hearing to make sure something gets done about this. I don’t want this to happen to someone else.”
Chantelle Glass was booked last summer into the Cuyahoga jail, where officers strapped her to a restraint chair, punched her, and unloaded half a can of pepper spray into her face. Glass, who suffer from asthma and could hardly breathe, said she thought the ordeal might kill her.
“That day, I thought I was going to die,” she told Cleveland.com, recalling how the guards left her tied to the chair as she sat in a small, dark room for nearly two hours, the pepper spray still filling her lungs.
“I sat in that cell I prayed to God that I wouldn’t die because I couldn’t breathe,” Glass added. “I prayed that I wouldn’t die there.”
Cpl. Idris-Farid Clark and Officer Robert Marsh were among the five jail officers indicted Monday in the violent attack against Glass. Both men are accused of strapping down the mother of three and assaulting her.
According to Cleveland.com, Clark is charged with is charged with second-degree felony assault and misdemeanor counts of assault, interfering with civil rights and unlawful restraint while Clark faces misdemeanor charges of assault, interfering with civil rights and unlawful restraint.
Marsh was arrested by police Monday and was scheduled for arraignment Tuesday, along with two other corrections officers. Clark turned himself in Thursday and was released from the same jail at which he works on a $5,000 bond.
The charges come some eight months after the July 16 attack, and Glass expressed frustration at the fact that the two were allowed to keep their jobs at the jail. Clark and Marsh were both placed on restrictive duty in August but remained on the job until April 9, when they were placed on paid administrative leave, the news site reported.
“I don’t understand why they were still working,” said Glass, 26. “It’s unjust they were still working and still getting a paychecks.”
The young mother found herself behind bars last July after her mom called local police after she and her sister had gotten into a heated argument. Both women were booked into the Cuyahoga County Jail, but Glass was forced to stay because of a warrant stemming from an unpaid traffic ticket from two years prior.
After being placed in a holding cell, Glass said she requested a phone call to let someone know she was in jail. She said the corrections officers refused, however, after she refused a guard’s demands to pick up a spoon.
That’s when a female officer reportedly told Glass, “Well, I’ll just have you maced and strapped to a chair.’ ” The threat only angered Glass, who began pounding on her jail cell.
She then called for a supervisor, Cpl. Clark, to speak with about making her phone call. Clark asked Glass if she would stop banging, to which the young woman agreed, but only if she was allowed her phone call. That’s when she said the officer placed her in handcuffs and called for backup.
Things took a turn for the worse when Marsh approached and immediately began roughing her up. Glass recalled the officers ordering her to the restraint chair as they exchanged insults, and accused Marsh of shoving her head. Once she was strapped in, that’s when Marsh struck her again.
What followed was a burning stream of pepper spray by Clark, who held the can about foot away from Glass’ face, according to court records. The ordeal only lasted about seven seconds, but Glass said it felt like several minutes.
“Everything was burning,” she told Cleveland.com. “I had bad aches and my eyes hurt. And I still didn’t get my phone call.”
Despite alerting officers of her struggle to breathe, Glass said she never received any medical treatment. Instead, she said guards locked her in a tiny cell by herself, doused her with water and made her sit there for two hours.
After her release two days later, an investigator at the jail sought Glass out and told her he was filing the report after watching security footage of the incident. Glass, who was never charged in the incident with her sister, said she is now mulling legal action against the county.
“I just want to see justice done,” she told the news site. “I’m going to be at every hearing to make sure something gets done about this. I don’t want this to happen to someone else.”
Boulder cops arrest black man for refusing to drop cane he uses due to seizures
Travis Gettys - raw story
10 APR 2019 AT 06:07 ET
Boulder police arrested a black man for using a cane while filming an officer who was ticketing a group of homeless people, a month after the department’s officers detained another black man at gunpoint as he picked up trash.
Officer Waylon Lolotai was on patrol Friday near some ballfields when he spotted three transients “lounging around a large pile of property and trash,” and the police report shows he asked them for identification, reported the Daily Camera.
The officer wrote in his report that 26-year-old Sammie Lawrence approached him and began recording his interaction with the transients, and Lolotai noted the man was carrying a “large staff” in his hand.
Lawrence posted video of the encounter on Facebook, where he explained that he carried the staff — which has a rubber tip and a carved handle in the shape of a dragon — to help him walk and balance due to problems he has with seizures.
Lolotai wrote in his report that he didn’t mind Lawrence recording him, but he asked him to move back and drop the staff.
Lawrence refused to drop the cane, and the officer said he was “alarmed” — and he threatened him with arrest if he didn’t drop the staff.
Two other officers showed up and ordered Lawrence to move back, and Lolotai tried to arrest him when he refused to follow their orders.
Lawrence “violently pulled away,” according to Lolotai, and did not let go of the staff until the officer kicked it away from him.
“Stop it, you’re assaulting me,” Lawrence can be heard saying in the Facebook video.
Lawrence was taken to a hospital for examination before he was taken to the Boulder County Jail on suspicion of obstructing a peace officer and resisting arrest, and he was later released on bond.
Police kept the cane as evidence in the case, according to the officer’s report.
Lolotai wrote in his report that he was recording with a body camera, but said it fell off during the struggle.
One of the transients in Lawrence’s video was later arrested on suspicion of assaulting a man with an aluminum bat, police said.
Lawrence’s arrest came just under a month after Boulder police detained a black student who was picking up trash in his own front yard, in a case that has generated national media coverage and fallen under internal investigation.
Police said Lawrence’s arrest was reviewed by command staff, who did not order an internal investigation at this time.
Officer Waylon Lolotai was on patrol Friday near some ballfields when he spotted three transients “lounging around a large pile of property and trash,” and the police report shows he asked them for identification, reported the Daily Camera.
The officer wrote in his report that 26-year-old Sammie Lawrence approached him and began recording his interaction with the transients, and Lolotai noted the man was carrying a “large staff” in his hand.
Lawrence posted video of the encounter on Facebook, where he explained that he carried the staff — which has a rubber tip and a carved handle in the shape of a dragon — to help him walk and balance due to problems he has with seizures.
Lolotai wrote in his report that he didn’t mind Lawrence recording him, but he asked him to move back and drop the staff.
Lawrence refused to drop the cane, and the officer said he was “alarmed” — and he threatened him with arrest if he didn’t drop the staff.
Two other officers showed up and ordered Lawrence to move back, and Lolotai tried to arrest him when he refused to follow their orders.
Lawrence “violently pulled away,” according to Lolotai, and did not let go of the staff until the officer kicked it away from him.
“Stop it, you’re assaulting me,” Lawrence can be heard saying in the Facebook video.
Lawrence was taken to a hospital for examination before he was taken to the Boulder County Jail on suspicion of obstructing a peace officer and resisting arrest, and he was later released on bond.
Police kept the cane as evidence in the case, according to the officer’s report.
Lolotai wrote in his report that he was recording with a body camera, but said it fell off during the struggle.
One of the transients in Lawrence’s video was later arrested on suspicion of assaulting a man with an aluminum bat, police said.
Lawrence’s arrest came just under a month after Boulder police detained a black student who was picking up trash in his own front yard, in a case that has generated national media coverage and fallen under internal investigation.
Police said Lawrence’s arrest was reviewed by command staff, who did not order an internal investigation at this time.
Criminal Justice Legislation Will Force New York Prosecutors to Disclose More Evidence, Sooner
Following years of scandal over wrongful convictions, the state legislature has passed reform measures that could help stop them.
by Joaquin Sapien - pro publica
April 8, 5 a.m. EDT
The New York state legislature has passed a reform package aimed at increasing fairness in the criminal justice system.
The new law requires prosecutors to share evidence against criminal defendants within 15 days of arraignment, a major shift for a state that previously had no such deadlines and maintained a notably restrictive approach toward disclosure.
New York defense lawyers have long complained of “trial by ambush,” where prosecutors were allowed to deliver crucial evidence at late stages of criminal proceedings, forcing defendants and their lawyers to make difficult decisions about whether to accept a plea deal or take their chances at trial based on limited information.
The reform package “will end the gamesmanship and power dynamics that have favored prosecutors for decades, resulting in thousands of coerced pleas and wrongful convictions,” said Janet Sabel, CEO of Legal Aid, calling the changes “monumental.”
In 2013, ProPublica published a series of articles on prosecutorial misconduct in New York City. We examined nearly 30 cases where appellate courts had overturned convictions because prosecutors committed some form of ethical or legal violation. In many of those cases, law enforcement failed to turn over evidence that was favorable to the defense.
In one such case, prosecutors withheld a receipt showing a man was on vacation in Florida at the time of a murder he was convicted of in Brooklyn. In another, prosecutors said a witness had testified of his free will, when in fact he had been arrested, held in a hotel room overnight and threatened with jail time before ultimately agreeing to appear in court as the state’s single eyewitness in a murder trial. In that case, prosecutors kept from the defense a material witness order — a powerful legal document signed by a judge and used as a last resort to compel reluctant witnesses to testify.
Joel Rudin, a New York defense attorney who represented several of the people wrongfully convicted in these cases, said the bill marks “the most important development in the criminal justice system” in his 40-year career.
One of those cases was that of Jabbar Collins, who served 16 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He and Rudin accused a senior Brooklyn prosecutor of coercing a witness, withholding evidence and suborning perjury to win his conviction in 1995. Ultimately, the pair of them won $13 million in settlements from New York City and state.
In a statement, Rudin said it was unclear whether the new law would have necessarily forced prosecutors in the case to act differently, but he pointed out that it does provide far more specifics on what needs to be turned over and when.
Under the new law, prosecutors must collect and share all police reports, witness statements, electronic recordings, grand jury transcripts, any and all electronic recordings, 911 calls, crime scene photographs, lab reports, expert opinion evidence and other material. If prosecutors fail to share such information within the specified time frame, a court may issue sanctions.
Already, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1963 Brady v. Maryland decision requires prosecutors to disclose exculpatory evidence. But this new law expands that obligation and establishes strict timelines to fulfill it in New York. Now, prosecutors must turn over their entire evidence file, regardless of whether the prosecutor believes certain information in it to be exculpatory. To keep anything from the defense, prosecutors must convince a judge that the evidence could be used to harm a prospective witness.
The bill is part of a larger criminal reform package that vastly reduces New York’s use of cash bail and removes impediments to speedy trials. Advocates and Democratic leaders have been pushing such measures for years. They were finally able to do so by including it in the state budget, which passed under the new Democratic majority in the legislature a week ago.
Prosecutors had long argued that such reforms would slow justice and potentially harm victims and witnesses. Some district attorneys accused the legislature of using underhanded tactics to get the deal done.
“While most New Yorkers were sleeping and enjoying the weekend, a handful of lawmakers with limited knowledge of the criminal justice system, behind closed doors, came to an agreement that will place unnecessary burdens on the workings of our criminal justice system and actually slow down the wheels of justice,” said Albany County District Attorney David Soares, president of the statewide district attorneys association.
Marvin Schechter, a veteran New York City defense lawyer and former chairman of the criminal justice section of the New York State Bar Association, welcomed the change. But, in an emailed statement, he also cautioned that courts have chipped away at similar, previous moves toward reform.
“Past efforts to reform New York’s antiquated and severely restrictive discovery statutes have been hailed as transformational and even progressive only to fail in an avalanche of court decisions blocking discovery from reaching the accused,” he wrote. “Only time will tell if the commitment to a more transparent and open system… will take hold.”
For their part, many district attorneys throughout the state are worried that the new law will strain law enforcement and the courts.
“Our hope was that our lawmakers would heed some of the suggestions by prosecutors concerning the procedure involved in the bills related to bail, discovery and speedy trial,” said Soares, the state district attorneys association president. “Instead, they have set up unrealistic, unworkable requirements that ultimately will fail the very people and communities they were intended to benefit.”
The new law requires prosecutors to share evidence against criminal defendants within 15 days of arraignment, a major shift for a state that previously had no such deadlines and maintained a notably restrictive approach toward disclosure.
New York defense lawyers have long complained of “trial by ambush,” where prosecutors were allowed to deliver crucial evidence at late stages of criminal proceedings, forcing defendants and their lawyers to make difficult decisions about whether to accept a plea deal or take their chances at trial based on limited information.
The reform package “will end the gamesmanship and power dynamics that have favored prosecutors for decades, resulting in thousands of coerced pleas and wrongful convictions,” said Janet Sabel, CEO of Legal Aid, calling the changes “monumental.”
In 2013, ProPublica published a series of articles on prosecutorial misconduct in New York City. We examined nearly 30 cases where appellate courts had overturned convictions because prosecutors committed some form of ethical or legal violation. In many of those cases, law enforcement failed to turn over evidence that was favorable to the defense.
In one such case, prosecutors withheld a receipt showing a man was on vacation in Florida at the time of a murder he was convicted of in Brooklyn. In another, prosecutors said a witness had testified of his free will, when in fact he had been arrested, held in a hotel room overnight and threatened with jail time before ultimately agreeing to appear in court as the state’s single eyewitness in a murder trial. In that case, prosecutors kept from the defense a material witness order — a powerful legal document signed by a judge and used as a last resort to compel reluctant witnesses to testify.
Joel Rudin, a New York defense attorney who represented several of the people wrongfully convicted in these cases, said the bill marks “the most important development in the criminal justice system” in his 40-year career.
One of those cases was that of Jabbar Collins, who served 16 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He and Rudin accused a senior Brooklyn prosecutor of coercing a witness, withholding evidence and suborning perjury to win his conviction in 1995. Ultimately, the pair of them won $13 million in settlements from New York City and state.
In a statement, Rudin said it was unclear whether the new law would have necessarily forced prosecutors in the case to act differently, but he pointed out that it does provide far more specifics on what needs to be turned over and when.
Under the new law, prosecutors must collect and share all police reports, witness statements, electronic recordings, grand jury transcripts, any and all electronic recordings, 911 calls, crime scene photographs, lab reports, expert opinion evidence and other material. If prosecutors fail to share such information within the specified time frame, a court may issue sanctions.
Already, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1963 Brady v. Maryland decision requires prosecutors to disclose exculpatory evidence. But this new law expands that obligation and establishes strict timelines to fulfill it in New York. Now, prosecutors must turn over their entire evidence file, regardless of whether the prosecutor believes certain information in it to be exculpatory. To keep anything from the defense, prosecutors must convince a judge that the evidence could be used to harm a prospective witness.
The bill is part of a larger criminal reform package that vastly reduces New York’s use of cash bail and removes impediments to speedy trials. Advocates and Democratic leaders have been pushing such measures for years. They were finally able to do so by including it in the state budget, which passed under the new Democratic majority in the legislature a week ago.
Prosecutors had long argued that such reforms would slow justice and potentially harm victims and witnesses. Some district attorneys accused the legislature of using underhanded tactics to get the deal done.
“While most New Yorkers were sleeping and enjoying the weekend, a handful of lawmakers with limited knowledge of the criminal justice system, behind closed doors, came to an agreement that will place unnecessary burdens on the workings of our criminal justice system and actually slow down the wheels of justice,” said Albany County District Attorney David Soares, president of the statewide district attorneys association.
Marvin Schechter, a veteran New York City defense lawyer and former chairman of the criminal justice section of the New York State Bar Association, welcomed the change. But, in an emailed statement, he also cautioned that courts have chipped away at similar, previous moves toward reform.
“Past efforts to reform New York’s antiquated and severely restrictive discovery statutes have been hailed as transformational and even progressive only to fail in an avalanche of court decisions blocking discovery from reaching the accused,” he wrote. “Only time will tell if the commitment to a more transparent and open system… will take hold.”
For their part, many district attorneys throughout the state are worried that the new law will strain law enforcement and the courts.
“Our hope was that our lawmakers would heed some of the suggestions by prosecutors concerning the procedure involved in the bills related to bail, discovery and speedy trial,” said Soares, the state district attorneys association president. “Instead, they have set up unrealistic, unworkable requirements that ultimately will fail the very people and communities they were intended to benefit.”
'Police need to find a better way:' Officials want answers about black teen's traffic stop
Andrew Wolfson, Louisville Courier Journal
Published 6:46 a.m. ET April 5, 2019
Civil rights leaders and several Metro Council members said Thursday they were enraged by a traffic stop in which a teenager was pulled from his car, frisked and handcuffed last summer after an alleged minor traffic violation.
Councilwoman Jessica Green, who chairs the council’s public safety committee, said she has asked Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad to appear before Metro Council to answer questions about the stop of Tae-Ahn Lea and the department’s tactic of "hyper-policing" to fight violent crime in the West End.
Green, D-District 1, said the stop described in a Courier Journal story and viewed a million times on YouTube shows how Louisville residents are "hunted down because of the color of their skin and where they live."
Sadiqa Reynolds, president and CEO of the Louisville Urban League said when she watched the video with a group of black parents on spring break, "We found ourselves talking back to the video, holding back tears."
"We understand the violence, we understand the drugs," she said. "But one fact remains, many of our children are innocent.
"Police need to find a better way."
Conrad has declined to comment on Lea’s stop, saying it is the subject of a pending internal-affairs investigation, although he has defended the department's strategy of aggressive policing in high crime corridors. A police spokeswoman said the department has no plans on dropping the strategy.
Councilman David James, D-6th District, a former police officer, said he doesn’t blame the officers involved in the stop because "they are doing what they are told to do."
But he said "stops like these are a bad idea. It is morally wrong. It is like going fishing with a big net. There are better ways to fight violence."
Councilman Mark Fox, D-District 13, a former police major and district commander who retired three years ago after 34 years on the force, said stopping people for traffic violations in high-crime areas makes sense. He likened it to employing police radar in an area with a high accident rate.
But Fox said police, after checking Lea’s license and running his name for warrants, should not have forced him out of his car.
"I wouldn't have done that," he said.
Metro Councilman Bill Hollander, D-9th District, noted that both Conrad and Mayor Greg Fischer six months ago promised a broad, community-wide discussion about traffic stops, especially in west Louisville neighborhoods.
"The community is still waiting — and this story demonstrates again how much we need to have that discussion now," he said.
"Routinely treating citizens in certain neighborhoods as suspects results in bad relationships and can result in violence and even death."
Lea, who had no criminal record, was stopped Aug. 9, 2018, for making a wide turn. Police searched his car after a police canine supposedly alerted on contraband inside it, but no illegal drugs or weapons were found and the traffic citation was later dismissed when neither of the officers who wrote it showed up in court.
Raoul Cunningham, president of the NAACP Louisville chapter, said, "how this young man was handled was disturbing."
"We support efforts to reduce violent crime, but what is the price citizens — primarily in west Louisville — must pay? How many stops have been made in other Louisville communities for an alleged illegal turn?"
Lea was stopped about a month before police pulled over the Rev. Kevin Cosby, senior pastor of St. Stephen Church, for an alleged traffic violation that he claimed was racially motivated.
Conrad announced last month that an investigation found Cosby was not racially profiled.
In an interview Thursday, Cosby, who is also president of historically black Simmons College of Kentucky, said watching the video of Lea's stop was like "déjà vu."
He said the stop and search showed "how an entire community is profiled" and that it "tragic how tax money is used to harass people."
He also said it appeared that officers in the stop were trying to goad Lea and his mother, Tija Jackson, into doing something more extreme.
Green said no date has been set for Conrad’s appearance. She said he will be asked to provide proof that traffic stops in high crime neighborhoods reduce violence and that she and others will try to help the department understand the "history of disenfranchised people being targeted just because where they live."
Green said that as a former prosecutor, public safety is her highest priority, but the "idea my two sons could and would be pulled over for no other reason than that they live in west Louisville" gives me "significant concern."
Conrad has said intensive policing in the Russell neighborhood reduced homicides there, but a study released last year of more than 2 million traffic stops in Nashville found they did not reduce crime.
Fischer declined to comment on the stop, saying it was under investigation. FOP President Nic Jilek also wouldn't comment.
Experts who viewed the video for the Courier Journal say that while the stop — other than the frisk — was legal, it was disproportionate to the alleged offense and an example of the kind of bad policing that undermines community trust.
"That young man and his family will forever have a bad taste towards police officers and the department," James said.
Councilwoman Jessica Green, who chairs the council’s public safety committee, said she has asked Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad to appear before Metro Council to answer questions about the stop of Tae-Ahn Lea and the department’s tactic of "hyper-policing" to fight violent crime in the West End.
Green, D-District 1, said the stop described in a Courier Journal story and viewed a million times on YouTube shows how Louisville residents are "hunted down because of the color of their skin and where they live."
Sadiqa Reynolds, president and CEO of the Louisville Urban League said when she watched the video with a group of black parents on spring break, "We found ourselves talking back to the video, holding back tears."
"We understand the violence, we understand the drugs," she said. "But one fact remains, many of our children are innocent.
"Police need to find a better way."
Conrad has declined to comment on Lea’s stop, saying it is the subject of a pending internal-affairs investigation, although he has defended the department's strategy of aggressive policing in high crime corridors. A police spokeswoman said the department has no plans on dropping the strategy.
Councilman David James, D-6th District, a former police officer, said he doesn’t blame the officers involved in the stop because "they are doing what they are told to do."
But he said "stops like these are a bad idea. It is morally wrong. It is like going fishing with a big net. There are better ways to fight violence."
Councilman Mark Fox, D-District 13, a former police major and district commander who retired three years ago after 34 years on the force, said stopping people for traffic violations in high-crime areas makes sense. He likened it to employing police radar in an area with a high accident rate.
But Fox said police, after checking Lea’s license and running his name for warrants, should not have forced him out of his car.
"I wouldn't have done that," he said.
Metro Councilman Bill Hollander, D-9th District, noted that both Conrad and Mayor Greg Fischer six months ago promised a broad, community-wide discussion about traffic stops, especially in west Louisville neighborhoods.
"The community is still waiting — and this story demonstrates again how much we need to have that discussion now," he said.
"Routinely treating citizens in certain neighborhoods as suspects results in bad relationships and can result in violence and even death."
Lea, who had no criminal record, was stopped Aug. 9, 2018, for making a wide turn. Police searched his car after a police canine supposedly alerted on contraband inside it, but no illegal drugs or weapons were found and the traffic citation was later dismissed when neither of the officers who wrote it showed up in court.
Raoul Cunningham, president of the NAACP Louisville chapter, said, "how this young man was handled was disturbing."
"We support efforts to reduce violent crime, but what is the price citizens — primarily in west Louisville — must pay? How many stops have been made in other Louisville communities for an alleged illegal turn?"
Lea was stopped about a month before police pulled over the Rev. Kevin Cosby, senior pastor of St. Stephen Church, for an alleged traffic violation that he claimed was racially motivated.
Conrad announced last month that an investigation found Cosby was not racially profiled.
In an interview Thursday, Cosby, who is also president of historically black Simmons College of Kentucky, said watching the video of Lea's stop was like "déjà vu."
He said the stop and search showed "how an entire community is profiled" and that it "tragic how tax money is used to harass people."
He also said it appeared that officers in the stop were trying to goad Lea and his mother, Tija Jackson, into doing something more extreme.
Green said no date has been set for Conrad’s appearance. She said he will be asked to provide proof that traffic stops in high crime neighborhoods reduce violence and that she and others will try to help the department understand the "history of disenfranchised people being targeted just because where they live."
Green said that as a former prosecutor, public safety is her highest priority, but the "idea my two sons could and would be pulled over for no other reason than that they live in west Louisville" gives me "significant concern."
Conrad has said intensive policing in the Russell neighborhood reduced homicides there, but a study released last year of more than 2 million traffic stops in Nashville found they did not reduce crime.
Fischer declined to comment on the stop, saying it was under investigation. FOP President Nic Jilek also wouldn't comment.
Experts who viewed the video for the Courier Journal say that while the stop — other than the frisk — was legal, it was disproportionate to the alleged offense and an example of the kind of bad policing that undermines community trust.
"That young man and his family will forever have a bad taste towards police officers and the department," James said.
Damning Internal Affairs Report Reveals Officers Sat In Car For 9 Minutes While Man Mauled To Death By Dog
By Tanasia Kenney - atlanta black star
April 1, 2019
Maurice Brown, 60, died from blood loss after suffering multiple dog bites to his arms and legs in a vicious attack by a pit bull in April 2017. (Photo courtesy of WHIO-TV(
Maurice Brown, 60, died of blood loss on April 25, 2017 after being attacked by a pit bull in the Old Dayton View neighborhood, the Dayton Daily News reported. After nearly two years, the city’s police chief has finally apologized to Brown’s family for the officers’ poor handling of the incident, calling their inaction unacceptable.
“On behalf of the Dayton Police Department, I extend our sincere condolences to family and friends of Maurice Brown for the personal loss of their loved one resulting from this incident,” Police Chief Richard Biehl said last Thursday, adding that the officers actions “were not aligned with the mission, the core values or the training of the” Dayton PD.
The apology came shortly after Dayton man Anthony D. Austin, who had failed to keep corralled the dog responsible for Brown’s death, was sentenced to 100 days in jail on a misdemeanor charge, according to local station WHIO-TV 7. A jury convicted Austin on the charge back in February during his trial.
The penalty stands in sharp contrast to those handed in some other fatal dog mauling cases, especially that of victim Diane Whipple, a woman’s lacrosse coach who was killed by two large Presa Canario dogs in her San Francisco apartment building in 2001. The co-owner of the dogs, attorney Marjorie Knoller, was convicted of second-degree murder in that case, and her husband was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for leaving the dogs with his wife while knowing she could not control them.
In his remarks the Dayton man’s death, Biehl apologized to Brown’s family for what he said was a clear “neglect of of duty for failing to provide immediate medical attention” to the injured man. Police dash cam video played at Austin’s jury trial earlier this year showed neither responding officers, Daniel Hartingsand Scott Pendley, go over to check on Brown’s bloodied body for nine long minutes, the station reported.
“Officers Pendley and Hartings had an obligation to render aid consistent with their first aid training to Mr. Brown as quickly as possible,” Lt. Kimberly Hill, former commander of the department’s Professional Standards Bureau, wrote in the findings of an internal affairs probe released on Thursday. “Mr. Brown was basically left in the condition in which he was found. That obligation was neglected.”
The city finally made the reports public after repeated requests by the Dayton Daily News and WHIO-TV.
Dayton police Sgt. Michael Pauley, the responding officers’ supervisor, said that he was “horrified” after viewing cruiser camera footage of the tragic incident. Brown had suffered multiple bites to his arms and legs, and eventually died from his injuries.
“I didn’t go to sleep the next day after watching it,” Pauley told internal affairs detectives at the time. “I couldn’t believe what I had watched.”
According to the report, the police supervisor also expressed worry about what the video might do the department, as there was no way to explain why the officers took several minutes to come to Brown’s aid.
Pendley and Hartings arrived to find the man lying in the street in a pool of blood just after 5 a.m. on April 25. That’s when Pendley flashed his cruiser’s lights and blared the car horn in an attempt to scare the dog away. The officer said he later saw Brown, 62, make a slight move, suggesting he may have still been alive, the internal affairs report revealed.
At 5:01 a.m., the two officers discussed shooting the pit bull and radioed for a sergeant, though they were unsure of their exact location. It wasn’t until two minutes later, at 5:03 a.m., that Hartings called for a medic. According to the report, Pendley stayed close to the patrol car and called out to Brown, saying: “Sir. Sir. Sir?”
Pendley finally checked Brown’s condition at 5:09 a.m., per records included in the internal affairs investigation. A medic arrived at 5:15 a.m. to find the man in cardiac arrest and left the scene at 5:22 a.m., records indicate.
By 5:55 a.m., Hartings had fatally shot the 67-pound dog.
Pendley retired three weeks following the incident, and therefore was not interviewed for the department’s investigation, Biehl said on Thursday. Meanwhile, Hartings was issued a training memo for “neglect of duty” after failing to provide immediate medical attention, however, the police chief said he could face more severe punishment.
It was last week that Biehl said he called Brown’s mother to apologize for the first time.
“I expressed deep regret that our response was not better than it was,” he told the Dayton Daily News. “It was not in the priority that should have been in terms of responding to his immediate aid and if there’s a threat by the dog, neutralize the threat.” (video)
“On behalf of the Dayton Police Department, I extend our sincere condolences to family and friends of Maurice Brown for the personal loss of their loved one resulting from this incident,” Police Chief Richard Biehl said last Thursday, adding that the officers actions “were not aligned with the mission, the core values or the training of the” Dayton PD.
The apology came shortly after Dayton man Anthony D. Austin, who had failed to keep corralled the dog responsible for Brown’s death, was sentenced to 100 days in jail on a misdemeanor charge, according to local station WHIO-TV 7. A jury convicted Austin on the charge back in February during his trial.
The penalty stands in sharp contrast to those handed in some other fatal dog mauling cases, especially that of victim Diane Whipple, a woman’s lacrosse coach who was killed by two large Presa Canario dogs in her San Francisco apartment building in 2001. The co-owner of the dogs, attorney Marjorie Knoller, was convicted of second-degree murder in that case, and her husband was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for leaving the dogs with his wife while knowing she could not control them.
In his remarks the Dayton man’s death, Biehl apologized to Brown’s family for what he said was a clear “neglect of of duty for failing to provide immediate medical attention” to the injured man. Police dash cam video played at Austin’s jury trial earlier this year showed neither responding officers, Daniel Hartingsand Scott Pendley, go over to check on Brown’s bloodied body for nine long minutes, the station reported.
“Officers Pendley and Hartings had an obligation to render aid consistent with their first aid training to Mr. Brown as quickly as possible,” Lt. Kimberly Hill, former commander of the department’s Professional Standards Bureau, wrote in the findings of an internal affairs probe released on Thursday. “Mr. Brown was basically left in the condition in which he was found. That obligation was neglected.”
The city finally made the reports public after repeated requests by the Dayton Daily News and WHIO-TV.
Dayton police Sgt. Michael Pauley, the responding officers’ supervisor, said that he was “horrified” after viewing cruiser camera footage of the tragic incident. Brown had suffered multiple bites to his arms and legs, and eventually died from his injuries.
“I didn’t go to sleep the next day after watching it,” Pauley told internal affairs detectives at the time. “I couldn’t believe what I had watched.”
According to the report, the police supervisor also expressed worry about what the video might do the department, as there was no way to explain why the officers took several minutes to come to Brown’s aid.
Pendley and Hartings arrived to find the man lying in the street in a pool of blood just after 5 a.m. on April 25. That’s when Pendley flashed his cruiser’s lights and blared the car horn in an attempt to scare the dog away. The officer said he later saw Brown, 62, make a slight move, suggesting he may have still been alive, the internal affairs report revealed.
At 5:01 a.m., the two officers discussed shooting the pit bull and radioed for a sergeant, though they were unsure of their exact location. It wasn’t until two minutes later, at 5:03 a.m., that Hartings called for a medic. According to the report, Pendley stayed close to the patrol car and called out to Brown, saying: “Sir. Sir. Sir?”
Pendley finally checked Brown’s condition at 5:09 a.m., per records included in the internal affairs investigation. A medic arrived at 5:15 a.m. to find the man in cardiac arrest and left the scene at 5:22 a.m., records indicate.
By 5:55 a.m., Hartings had fatally shot the 67-pound dog.
Pendley retired three weeks following the incident, and therefore was not interviewed for the department’s investigation, Biehl said on Thursday. Meanwhile, Hartings was issued a training memo for “neglect of duty” after failing to provide immediate medical attention, however, the police chief said he could face more severe punishment.
It was last week that Biehl said he called Brown’s mother to apologize for the first time.
“I expressed deep regret that our response was not better than it was,” he told the Dayton Daily News. “It was not in the priority that should have been in terms of responding to his immediate aid and if there’s a threat by the dog, neutralize the threat.” (video)
Chicago cops terrorize innocent black family after bursting into 4-year-old’s birthday party with guns drawn
Tana Ganeva - raw story
27 MAR 2019 AT 09:49 ET
Officers with the Chicago police department broke into a home with a battering ram and sledgehammer to bust an occupant for purportedly possessing ecstasy, reports local news outlet CBS Chicago. But as it turns out, their suspect had not lived there for 5 years, according to current occupants.
The family was celebrating a 4-year-olds birthday. “They were saying F words and stuff,” 7-year-old Samari Boswell, whose little brother’s party it was, said. “It was horrible.”
The family’s lawyer says the traumatizing experience resulted from police using bad warrants. He says it’s the fourth such case that he has handled, where cops burst into the wrong homes and pointed guns at innocent people, including kids.
“Then you see guns, you see guns pointing at us and it was like terrifying,” Kiqiana Jackson, who was also at the party, said.
The kids were playing “Duck, Duck, Goose.” Seconds later, officers were pointing their weapons at them.
“I thought they was going to shoot me, and my brother, and everybody else,” Samari told CBS.
The Chicago Police Department issued the following statement:
In all cases, CPD makes every effort to ensure the validity and accuracy of all information that is used to apply for and execute search warrants. Oftentimes this information comes from community sources and despite the vetting of material through a criminal court and the methodical process to authenticate addresses, errors can occur and we take them very seriously.
The family was celebrating a 4-year-olds birthday. “They were saying F words and stuff,” 7-year-old Samari Boswell, whose little brother’s party it was, said. “It was horrible.”
The family’s lawyer says the traumatizing experience resulted from police using bad warrants. He says it’s the fourth such case that he has handled, where cops burst into the wrong homes and pointed guns at innocent people, including kids.
“Then you see guns, you see guns pointing at us and it was like terrifying,” Kiqiana Jackson, who was also at the party, said.
The kids were playing “Duck, Duck, Goose.” Seconds later, officers were pointing their weapons at them.
“I thought they was going to shoot me, and my brother, and everybody else,” Samari told CBS.
The Chicago Police Department issued the following statement:
In all cases, CPD makes every effort to ensure the validity and accuracy of all information that is used to apply for and execute search warrants. Oftentimes this information comes from community sources and despite the vetting of material through a criminal court and the methodical process to authenticate addresses, errors can occur and we take them very seriously.
Two Indiana Police Officers Face Federal Charges in Videotaped Beating of Handcuffed Man
The charges come after ProPublica and the South Bend Tribune exposed details of the abuse and published the video. “The alleged actions by these individuals went against everything in the oath they took to serve and protect,” the FBI said.
by Christian Sheckler, South Bend Tribune
March 22, 12:34 p.m. EDT
A federal grand jury has indicted two Elkhart, Indiana, police officers on civil rights charges for repeatedly punching a handcuffed man last year, U.S. prosecutors announced Friday.
Elkhart County prosecutors had originally charged the two officers, Cory Newland and Joshua Titus, with misdemeanor battery in November, after the South Bend Tribune and ProPublica learned of the incident and requested video.
The video showed Mario Guerrero Ledesma, seated and wearing handcuffs, in a detention area at the city police station in January 2018, while Newland, Titus and other officers stood nearby. At one point, Guerrero Ledesma spat toward Newland. Titus and Newland immediately punched Guerrero Ledesma in the face, causing him to fall backward onto the floor, then jumped on top of him and punched him repeatedly. Guerrero Ledesma had initially been arrested on suspicion of domestic battery.
“Today’s indictments send a clear message that the FBI won’t tolerate the abuse of power or victimization of citizens by anyone in law enforcement,” Grant Mendenhall, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Indianapolis division, said in a statement. “The alleged actions by these individuals went against everything in the oath they took to serve and protect.”
The federal indictment accuses Newland and Titus of depriving Guerrero Ledesma of his rights by using excessive force, and it alleges he was injured in the beating.
Beyond the federal indictment, the battery charges against Newland and Titus in Elkhart County also are still pending. Both officers have pleaded not guilty. Titus is scheduled for a May trial in Elkhart Superior Court. Newland is set for a round of negotiations with prosecutors in April about a possible plea agreement, according to the docket for his case in Elkhart City Court.
The Tribune left phone messages on Friday for attorneys representing the officers in Elkhart County. Neither Newland nor Titus has returned calls seeking comment in the past.
Five months after the incident, Elkhart’s police chief at the time, Ed Windbigler, gave the officers written reprimands. Speaking to the city’s police oversight commission in June, Windbigler said the two officers “just went a little overboard” in subduing a person in custody, but he said nothing of the punches thrown and said there were no injuries in the incident.
The civil rights charge against Newland and Titus carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice.
“My office takes allegations of civil rights violations seriously, including use of excessive force by police officers sworn to uphold the law,” U.S. Attorney Thomas L. Kirsch said in the news release.
The Tribune and ProPublica first requested video of the beating as part of an investigation into disciplinary matters in the Elkhart Police Department. The news organizations also revealed 28 of the department’s 34 highest-ranking officers had disciplinary records, 15 had been suspended and seven had opened fire in at least one fatal shooting.
Later, the Tribune and ProPublica reported on another disciplinary case in which Windbigler, the chief at the time, had provided inaccurate or incomplete information to the civilian oversight commission.
In the wake of the reports, Windbigler was suspended and later resigned. Mayor Tim Neese also announced an independent review of the Police Department, to be conducted by former U.S. Attorney Deborah Daniels. Neese has abandoned his re-election effort.
Elkhart County prosecutors had originally charged the two officers, Cory Newland and Joshua Titus, with misdemeanor battery in November, after the South Bend Tribune and ProPublica learned of the incident and requested video.
The video showed Mario Guerrero Ledesma, seated and wearing handcuffs, in a detention area at the city police station in January 2018, while Newland, Titus and other officers stood nearby. At one point, Guerrero Ledesma spat toward Newland. Titus and Newland immediately punched Guerrero Ledesma in the face, causing him to fall backward onto the floor, then jumped on top of him and punched him repeatedly. Guerrero Ledesma had initially been arrested on suspicion of domestic battery.
“Today’s indictments send a clear message that the FBI won’t tolerate the abuse of power or victimization of citizens by anyone in law enforcement,” Grant Mendenhall, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Indianapolis division, said in a statement. “The alleged actions by these individuals went against everything in the oath they took to serve and protect.”
The federal indictment accuses Newland and Titus of depriving Guerrero Ledesma of his rights by using excessive force, and it alleges he was injured in the beating.
Beyond the federal indictment, the battery charges against Newland and Titus in Elkhart County also are still pending. Both officers have pleaded not guilty. Titus is scheduled for a May trial in Elkhart Superior Court. Newland is set for a round of negotiations with prosecutors in April about a possible plea agreement, according to the docket for his case in Elkhart City Court.
The Tribune left phone messages on Friday for attorneys representing the officers in Elkhart County. Neither Newland nor Titus has returned calls seeking comment in the past.
Five months after the incident, Elkhart’s police chief at the time, Ed Windbigler, gave the officers written reprimands. Speaking to the city’s police oversight commission in June, Windbigler said the two officers “just went a little overboard” in subduing a person in custody, but he said nothing of the punches thrown and said there were no injuries in the incident.
The civil rights charge against Newland and Titus carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice.
“My office takes allegations of civil rights violations seriously, including use of excessive force by police officers sworn to uphold the law,” U.S. Attorney Thomas L. Kirsch said in the news release.
The Tribune and ProPublica first requested video of the beating as part of an investigation into disciplinary matters in the Elkhart Police Department. The news organizations also revealed 28 of the department’s 34 highest-ranking officers had disciplinary records, 15 had been suspended and seven had opened fire in at least one fatal shooting.
Later, the Tribune and ProPublica reported on another disciplinary case in which Windbigler, the chief at the time, had provided inaccurate or incomplete information to the civilian oversight commission.
In the wake of the reports, Windbigler was suspended and later resigned. Mayor Tim Neese also announced an independent review of the Police Department, to be conducted by former U.S. Attorney Deborah Daniels. Neese has abandoned his re-election effort.
'The victim becomes the criminal': how prosecutors vilify those killed by police
Sam Levin in Oakland
the guardian
Thu 21 Mar 2019 01.00 EDT
In reports on police killings, district attorneys dredge up negative details about victims and promote racist tropes, adding to families’ pain.
One year after police killed Stephon Clark in his family’s backyard, law enforcement officials launched a different kind of assault on the 22-year-old.
They attacked his reputation and impugned his character.
The Sacramento district attorney (DA) publicly released a series of Clark’s text messages with his fiancee, detailing conflicts in their relationship and his mental health struggles. Salena Manni, his distraught fiancee, toldreporters that what happened days before police killed Clark was irrelevant: “It’s about the officers who murdered him … because he had a cellphone in his hand.”
The DA’s decision this month to publicize Clark’s intimate communications, while announcing she would not charge the officers who killed the unarmed father, stunned the family and activists, who already had little hope they would achieve accountability through the justice system. But the practice of DAs vilifying victims of police violence is not unique to Sacramento.
District attorneys have repeatedly engaged in what victims’ families describe as cruel and painful smears of the dead. In some cases, prosecutors assigned to investigate killings present irrelevant and inaccurate information about victims and their pasts while exonerating the police – a kind of “character assassination” that spreads in the media. The tactic, critics say, emboldens racist policing.
“My son’s life was relegated to falsehoods and accusations,” said Dominic Archibald, recounting the ways prosecutors denigrated her son after he was killed by a California sheriff’s deputy in 2015. “The scary part to me is they perpetuate this idea … that he was a bad person and he should’ve been murdered.”
Some families are fighting to reclaim their loved ones’ reputations while advocating for changes to what reformers see as one of the most powerful and unethical forces of the American criminal justice system.
When prosecutors promote racist tropes
Often under the guise of transparency, DAs now publish detailed reports on the killings that provide an account of what happened, why deadly force was “reasonable” and, in some cases, in-depth background on the deceased. They argue that these facts are necessary for the public to understand their decisions.
But in practice, it means they dredge up negative details about a victim’s life prior to the incident, sometimes in ways that seem designed to promote racist stereotypes and prey on fears.
“The goal is to get the public to not like him,” said L Chris Stewart, a civil rights attorney, citing the kinds of facts DAs typically exploit to smear the dead: claims about criminal records, drug use, gang allegations and missed child support payments.
“It’s hard to justify selectively releasing information that creates a particular image of a victim,” said Daniel Medwed, Northeastern professor of law and criminal justice. “It’s very disturbing.”
The pain of these reports can be immense for families, who in some jurisdictions have to wait years for them, knowing they are very likely to exonerate their loved one’s killer.
In 2016, prosecutors branded Nathaniel Pickett, 29, a violent criminal after his death. He was unarmed when a sheriff’s deputy in San Bernardino county stopped him for a “pedestrian check” and later accused him of “trespassing” at a motel property, where he was in fact living.
Pickett, who lived with mental illness, was “fidgety and could not stand still”, according to the deputy, Kyle Woods, who interrogated him and tried to arrest him, eventually shooting and killing him after a foot chase.
A year later, the district attorney’s office cleared Woods of wrongdoing and released a report with a lengthy section labeled “criminal history”: Pickett had multiple previous cases of resisting arrest and a warrant for failure to appear in court. The report also said he “previously used marijuana”.
“If you’re going to say a person ‘resisted arrest’, tell me what they were being arrested for?” said Archibald, his mother. “You’re sullying my son’s name.”
His rap sheet was documentation of police harassment, she added: “What hurts me is my son was being targeted. He was a tall, dark complexion black male who was profiled.”
The DA’s report also contained falsehoods that misrepresented her son, the mother said.
The prosecutor’s office alleged that Pickett repeatedly “punched” the deputy in its report. But during a civil trial, attorneys for Pickett’s family presented video evidence of the encounter that did not show him throwing any punches, as well as photos of Woods after the incident with no visible injuries.
A jury ruled that Woods had negligently used lethal force and Pickett should never have been detained. But that verdict came last year, long after the DA had presented its own narrative of Pickett as a criminal threat, with claims that were repeated in local media.
In the case of Alton Sterling, killed by Louisiana police outside a convenience store where he had been selling CDs, state prosecutors said the killing was justified in a report that revealed he had drugs in his system and detailed a previous interaction with law enforcement.
The release of this information was unwarranted given that the entire encounter and killing was captured on video, said Stewart, the family’s lawyer.
“You are using his past to determine whether the officers were right?” Quinyetta McMillon, the mother of Sterling’s son, said in a recent interview. “This has nothing to do with why he was gunned down.”
The personal attacks on Sterling were painful, she added: “It was very embarrassing … We’re all humans. We all make mistakes. No one is perfect.”
Working with police to criminalize victims
Police in America kill upwards of 1,000 people a year. Officers who kill on duty almost never face criminal charges in the US, where the law broadly shields police who claim they feared for their lives when they pulled the trigger.
The systems vary by state but typically involve locally elected DAs overseeing inquiries into killings by police. This means they are often tasked with investigating members of police departments that they work with on a daily basis. A Guardian analysis found that in 2015, prosecutors in the US cleared police of wrongdoing in 217 cases involving officers in their direct partner agencies. Often, the DAs have received campaign donations from local police unions.
The DA investigations into killings by law enforcement look dramatically different from prosecutors’ traditional homicide inquiries. “The murderer becomes the victim, and the victim becomes the criminal,” said Melina Abdullah, a Black Lives Matter organizer who works with families of those killed by Los Angeles police.
For Latino boys and young men in Los Angeles, vague and unsubstantiated claims of gang affiliations are common, attorneys said.
After a Los Angeles police officer chased 14-year-old Jesse Romero down the street and shot him dead, prosecutors released a report that painted the first-year high schooler as a potential “criminal street gang” member who may have been involved in “vandalism”.
“They lied,” said Jesus Romero, Jesse’s father, choking up as he described how he wanted his son to be remembered. “All the community knew him as a good kid, as a friendly kid.”
Witnesses said Jesse had thrown a gun over a fence before he was shot dead.
Speaking in Spanish through a translator, Jesus said his son, like many of the Latino boys in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of LA, had previously been unfairly stopped and searched by police: “They were always harassing him.”
Publishing a victim’s record, but hiding an officer’s past
Prosecutors who focus on a victim’s past sometimes apply a different standard to the officers they are purportedly investigating. That can mean DA reviews that altogether ignore an officer’s troubling record.
In the report on 14-year-old Jesse, the Los Angeles district attorney, Jackie Lacey, did not mention the fact the officer who killed him, Eden Medina, had killed another man two weeks prior – shooting a man in the back as he lay on the ground.
“How is that a fair assessment of that officer?” said Humberto Guizar, the family’s lawyer, who said he feared that in this current political climate, law enforcement was emboldened to slander victims.
Jesus, Jesse’s father, said he couldn’t understand the exclusion of Medina’s record from the DA’s report: “I want the whole world to know.” (The Los Angeles DA’s office declined to comment).
Sometimes, DAs gloss over facts about officers that seem directly pertinent to the case.
Police killed Diante Yarber, a 26-year-old father of three, with a barrage of bullets fired at a Walmart parking lot last year in Barstow, California. He was unarmed and inside his car when he was killed, and the family said it was a clear act of racial profiling.
The San Bernardino county DA’s report announcing no charges against the officers said Yarber was a “gang member known to carry guns and run from law enforcement”.
Yarber was not a gang member, said his family’s attorney Sharon Brunner, adding that the DA’s report exaggerated his criminal record in an attempt to “dirty him up”. What’s more, the DA’s analysis of whether Officer Jimmie Walker should face charges included no discussion of the fact that the officer had previously been charged with a hate crime, accused of yelling racial slurs and attacking a man in 2010. (He eventually pleaded guilty to lesser misdemeanor charges.)
The DA briefly noted Walker’s history, but did not discuss it as a consideration when deciding whether to charge him.
“It’s very, very devastating – emotionally and physically,” said Mary Padilla, the grandmother of one of Yarber’s children. “This officer had a history that wasn’t brought up.”
The San Bernardino DA, Jason Anderson, declined to comment on the Pickett and Yarber cases, which a previous DA oversaw, but he said his reports on police killings would generally include “all facts and circumstances that are relevant to the reasonableness of the officer’s actions” and would publish a victim’s criminal record “if that were going to be relevant, admissible evidence at trial”.
He added: “We never desire to cause harm to anyone’s loved ones.”
Reclaiming a victim’s humanity
Families who want to fight back have few options. Civil trials can uncover falsehoods pushed by a DA and yield monetary damages, but only after a lengthy process.
Loved ones and their attorneys could also potentially file ethics complaints against DAs over the release of negative information, said Medwed. But the professor said it would be very difficult to prove a violation, given that there are few ethical rules that bind DAs.
Kate Levine, assistant professor at St John’s University law school, has argued that the conflict of interest is too great for DAs to investigate their own police partners, and that an outside investigation could go a long way in addressing concerns about DAs being unfair to victims.
In recent years, some cities have also elected a number of more progressive DAs, who have made this issue a priority. The chief prosecutor in Baltimore, Marilyn Mosby, brought charges against officers in the death of Freddie Gray, and a Chicago prosecutor was voted out after widespread criticisms over her handling of the Laquan McDonald case.
But without serious changes to the legal system, victims’ loved ones will continue to be forced to file lawsuits – and do all they can to speak out and reclaim the humanity of those they lost at the hands of the state.
Archibald said that, instead of the criminal image of her son pushed by the DA, she wished the public knew that he was a “humanitarian”, a talented athlete, and someone who loved rap music, Frank Sinatra and Phantom of the Opera.
Jesus said his son Jesse loved basketball and skateboarding, was beloved by his teachers, and wanted to be an engineer: “He was very intelligent.”
Samantha Robledo, mother of Diante Yarber’s eight-year-old daughter, said she didn’t know how she would talk to her daughter in the future if she were to read reports presenting her father as a criminal: “She knows her dad was not a bad person.”
The killing and subsequent destruction of Yarber’s reputation was still difficult to process, she added: “It’s unfair. They hurt a lot of people … We are still not okay. We are still barely coping.”
One year after police killed Stephon Clark in his family’s backyard, law enforcement officials launched a different kind of assault on the 22-year-old.
They attacked his reputation and impugned his character.
The Sacramento district attorney (DA) publicly released a series of Clark’s text messages with his fiancee, detailing conflicts in their relationship and his mental health struggles. Salena Manni, his distraught fiancee, toldreporters that what happened days before police killed Clark was irrelevant: “It’s about the officers who murdered him … because he had a cellphone in his hand.”
The DA’s decision this month to publicize Clark’s intimate communications, while announcing she would not charge the officers who killed the unarmed father, stunned the family and activists, who already had little hope they would achieve accountability through the justice system. But the practice of DAs vilifying victims of police violence is not unique to Sacramento.
District attorneys have repeatedly engaged in what victims’ families describe as cruel and painful smears of the dead. In some cases, prosecutors assigned to investigate killings present irrelevant and inaccurate information about victims and their pasts while exonerating the police – a kind of “character assassination” that spreads in the media. The tactic, critics say, emboldens racist policing.
“My son’s life was relegated to falsehoods and accusations,” said Dominic Archibald, recounting the ways prosecutors denigrated her son after he was killed by a California sheriff’s deputy in 2015. “The scary part to me is they perpetuate this idea … that he was a bad person and he should’ve been murdered.”
Some families are fighting to reclaim their loved ones’ reputations while advocating for changes to what reformers see as one of the most powerful and unethical forces of the American criminal justice system.
When prosecutors promote racist tropes
Often under the guise of transparency, DAs now publish detailed reports on the killings that provide an account of what happened, why deadly force was “reasonable” and, in some cases, in-depth background on the deceased. They argue that these facts are necessary for the public to understand their decisions.
But in practice, it means they dredge up negative details about a victim’s life prior to the incident, sometimes in ways that seem designed to promote racist stereotypes and prey on fears.
“The goal is to get the public to not like him,” said L Chris Stewart, a civil rights attorney, citing the kinds of facts DAs typically exploit to smear the dead: claims about criminal records, drug use, gang allegations and missed child support payments.
“It’s hard to justify selectively releasing information that creates a particular image of a victim,” said Daniel Medwed, Northeastern professor of law and criminal justice. “It’s very disturbing.”
The pain of these reports can be immense for families, who in some jurisdictions have to wait years for them, knowing they are very likely to exonerate their loved one’s killer.
In 2016, prosecutors branded Nathaniel Pickett, 29, a violent criminal after his death. He was unarmed when a sheriff’s deputy in San Bernardino county stopped him for a “pedestrian check” and later accused him of “trespassing” at a motel property, where he was in fact living.
Pickett, who lived with mental illness, was “fidgety and could not stand still”, according to the deputy, Kyle Woods, who interrogated him and tried to arrest him, eventually shooting and killing him after a foot chase.
A year later, the district attorney’s office cleared Woods of wrongdoing and released a report with a lengthy section labeled “criminal history”: Pickett had multiple previous cases of resisting arrest and a warrant for failure to appear in court. The report also said he “previously used marijuana”.
“If you’re going to say a person ‘resisted arrest’, tell me what they were being arrested for?” said Archibald, his mother. “You’re sullying my son’s name.”
His rap sheet was documentation of police harassment, she added: “What hurts me is my son was being targeted. He was a tall, dark complexion black male who was profiled.”
The DA’s report also contained falsehoods that misrepresented her son, the mother said.
The prosecutor’s office alleged that Pickett repeatedly “punched” the deputy in its report. But during a civil trial, attorneys for Pickett’s family presented video evidence of the encounter that did not show him throwing any punches, as well as photos of Woods after the incident with no visible injuries.
A jury ruled that Woods had negligently used lethal force and Pickett should never have been detained. But that verdict came last year, long after the DA had presented its own narrative of Pickett as a criminal threat, with claims that were repeated in local media.
In the case of Alton Sterling, killed by Louisiana police outside a convenience store where he had been selling CDs, state prosecutors said the killing was justified in a report that revealed he had drugs in his system and detailed a previous interaction with law enforcement.
The release of this information was unwarranted given that the entire encounter and killing was captured on video, said Stewart, the family’s lawyer.
“You are using his past to determine whether the officers were right?” Quinyetta McMillon, the mother of Sterling’s son, said in a recent interview. “This has nothing to do with why he was gunned down.”
The personal attacks on Sterling were painful, she added: “It was very embarrassing … We’re all humans. We all make mistakes. No one is perfect.”
Working with police to criminalize victims
Police in America kill upwards of 1,000 people a year. Officers who kill on duty almost never face criminal charges in the US, where the law broadly shields police who claim they feared for their lives when they pulled the trigger.
The systems vary by state but typically involve locally elected DAs overseeing inquiries into killings by police. This means they are often tasked with investigating members of police departments that they work with on a daily basis. A Guardian analysis found that in 2015, prosecutors in the US cleared police of wrongdoing in 217 cases involving officers in their direct partner agencies. Often, the DAs have received campaign donations from local police unions.
The DA investigations into killings by law enforcement look dramatically different from prosecutors’ traditional homicide inquiries. “The murderer becomes the victim, and the victim becomes the criminal,” said Melina Abdullah, a Black Lives Matter organizer who works with families of those killed by Los Angeles police.
For Latino boys and young men in Los Angeles, vague and unsubstantiated claims of gang affiliations are common, attorneys said.
After a Los Angeles police officer chased 14-year-old Jesse Romero down the street and shot him dead, prosecutors released a report that painted the first-year high schooler as a potential “criminal street gang” member who may have been involved in “vandalism”.
“They lied,” said Jesus Romero, Jesse’s father, choking up as he described how he wanted his son to be remembered. “All the community knew him as a good kid, as a friendly kid.”
Witnesses said Jesse had thrown a gun over a fence before he was shot dead.
Speaking in Spanish through a translator, Jesus said his son, like many of the Latino boys in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of LA, had previously been unfairly stopped and searched by police: “They were always harassing him.”
Publishing a victim’s record, but hiding an officer’s past
Prosecutors who focus on a victim’s past sometimes apply a different standard to the officers they are purportedly investigating. That can mean DA reviews that altogether ignore an officer’s troubling record.
In the report on 14-year-old Jesse, the Los Angeles district attorney, Jackie Lacey, did not mention the fact the officer who killed him, Eden Medina, had killed another man two weeks prior – shooting a man in the back as he lay on the ground.
“How is that a fair assessment of that officer?” said Humberto Guizar, the family’s lawyer, who said he feared that in this current political climate, law enforcement was emboldened to slander victims.
Jesus, Jesse’s father, said he couldn’t understand the exclusion of Medina’s record from the DA’s report: “I want the whole world to know.” (The Los Angeles DA’s office declined to comment).
Sometimes, DAs gloss over facts about officers that seem directly pertinent to the case.
Police killed Diante Yarber, a 26-year-old father of three, with a barrage of bullets fired at a Walmart parking lot last year in Barstow, California. He was unarmed and inside his car when he was killed, and the family said it was a clear act of racial profiling.
The San Bernardino county DA’s report announcing no charges against the officers said Yarber was a “gang member known to carry guns and run from law enforcement”.
Yarber was not a gang member, said his family’s attorney Sharon Brunner, adding that the DA’s report exaggerated his criminal record in an attempt to “dirty him up”. What’s more, the DA’s analysis of whether Officer Jimmie Walker should face charges included no discussion of the fact that the officer had previously been charged with a hate crime, accused of yelling racial slurs and attacking a man in 2010. (He eventually pleaded guilty to lesser misdemeanor charges.)
The DA briefly noted Walker’s history, but did not discuss it as a consideration when deciding whether to charge him.
“It’s very, very devastating – emotionally and physically,” said Mary Padilla, the grandmother of one of Yarber’s children. “This officer had a history that wasn’t brought up.”
The San Bernardino DA, Jason Anderson, declined to comment on the Pickett and Yarber cases, which a previous DA oversaw, but he said his reports on police killings would generally include “all facts and circumstances that are relevant to the reasonableness of the officer’s actions” and would publish a victim’s criminal record “if that were going to be relevant, admissible evidence at trial”.
He added: “We never desire to cause harm to anyone’s loved ones.”
Reclaiming a victim’s humanity
Families who want to fight back have few options. Civil trials can uncover falsehoods pushed by a DA and yield monetary damages, but only after a lengthy process.
Loved ones and their attorneys could also potentially file ethics complaints against DAs over the release of negative information, said Medwed. But the professor said it would be very difficult to prove a violation, given that there are few ethical rules that bind DAs.
Kate Levine, assistant professor at St John’s University law school, has argued that the conflict of interest is too great for DAs to investigate their own police partners, and that an outside investigation could go a long way in addressing concerns about DAs being unfair to victims.
In recent years, some cities have also elected a number of more progressive DAs, who have made this issue a priority. The chief prosecutor in Baltimore, Marilyn Mosby, brought charges against officers in the death of Freddie Gray, and a Chicago prosecutor was voted out after widespread criticisms over her handling of the Laquan McDonald case.
But without serious changes to the legal system, victims’ loved ones will continue to be forced to file lawsuits – and do all they can to speak out and reclaim the humanity of those they lost at the hands of the state.
Archibald said that, instead of the criminal image of her son pushed by the DA, she wished the public knew that he was a “humanitarian”, a talented athlete, and someone who loved rap music, Frank Sinatra and Phantom of the Opera.
Jesus said his son Jesse loved basketball and skateboarding, was beloved by his teachers, and wanted to be an engineer: “He was very intelligent.”
Samantha Robledo, mother of Diante Yarber’s eight-year-old daughter, said she didn’t know how she would talk to her daughter in the future if she were to read reports presenting her father as a criminal: “She knows her dad was not a bad person.”
The killing and subsequent destruction of Yarber’s reputation was still difficult to process, she added: “It’s unfair. They hurt a lot of people … We are still not okay. We are still barely coping.”
Probe Uncovers Pattern of Racial Issues Within Detroit Police’s 6th Precinct, Calling It Their ‘Dirty Little Secret’
By Associated Press - atlanta black star-
March 14, 2019
DETROIT (AP) — A second white Detroit police officer has been fired for misconduct after his partner posted a racist video online, and an internal audit found that racial insensitivity is a “dirty little secret” in the west side police precinct where both worked, the city’s police chief said Tuesday.
The investigation into the 6th Precinct was launched this year after Gary Steele, then a police officer posted a video on Snapchat of a black driver whom he had pulled over for having expired plates. He can be heard saying “priceless” and “bye Felicia” as the 23-year-old woman walks away. Video captions read “What black girl magic looks like” and “celebrating Black History Month.”
Steele was fired two weeks ago. Chief James Craig announced Tuesday that Steele’s partner, Michael Garrison, has also been fired for conduct unbecoming an officer, not reporting misconduct, neglect of duty, and being untruthful to investigators.
“While investigating former officer Steele, investigators determined that officer Garrison also repeatedly demonstrated disturbing actions while on the job,” said Craig, adding that the incidents were not isolated to the day the video was recorded.
Craig said about a dozen allegations were leveled against Garrison, including that he used names for African- and Arab-Americans that were “certainly racially insensitive, particularly when they’re focused on one or two demographics.”
Garrison also failed to report the Snapchat video to supervisors and was not truthful when making statements to investigators, Craig said.
Attorneys for the police union haven’t replied to a phone message seeking comment.
Police departments across the country are being scrutinized and criticized for their treatment of African-Americans and other people of color. Protests over the shootings of black men by white officers have upturned dozens of cities in recent years.
The audit “should be used as a template to address racism precinct by precinct and in special policing units,” said Kenneth Reed, spokesman for the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality.
“The coalition challenges Chief Craig to continue audits for each precinct,” Reed said.
The misconduct investigations into Garrison and Steele ran parallel to the probe that revealed the 6th Precinct was “racially divided,” Craig said.
“During this audit, some referred to the racial insensitivities that was demonstrated by some that this was the 6th Precinct’s dirty little secret. When comments were made, supervisors were pretty much non-responsive. Some of the comments were made around the station, some in the field,” he said.
One officer told investigators that in January 2015, Garrison saw a white man walking in the cold, called him a “tax-paying citizen” and gave the man a ride to his destination. Later in the shift, the officers saw a black man carrying what appeared to be bags of groceries. The other officer asked if they were going to give the black man a ride. Garrison replied “no, we’re not” and kept driving, Craig said.
“I found her testimony consistent with the behaviors being alleged,” he added.
“This is an opportunity for us to set a model for the department,” Craig said. “There’s going to be some change at the 6th, relative to some supervisors and some managers.”
Activist and Detroit pastor Maurice Hardwick, who joined Craig at Tuesday’s news conference, said the Steele video and revelations about problems in the 6th Precinct are upsetting.
“This is a very sad occasion,” Hardwick said. “But it’s also a light in the dark tunnel that we’re looking to make changes.”
The investigation into the 6th Precinct was launched this year after Gary Steele, then a police officer posted a video on Snapchat of a black driver whom he had pulled over for having expired plates. He can be heard saying “priceless” and “bye Felicia” as the 23-year-old woman walks away. Video captions read “What black girl magic looks like” and “celebrating Black History Month.”
Steele was fired two weeks ago. Chief James Craig announced Tuesday that Steele’s partner, Michael Garrison, has also been fired for conduct unbecoming an officer, not reporting misconduct, neglect of duty, and being untruthful to investigators.
“While investigating former officer Steele, investigators determined that officer Garrison also repeatedly demonstrated disturbing actions while on the job,” said Craig, adding that the incidents were not isolated to the day the video was recorded.
Craig said about a dozen allegations were leveled against Garrison, including that he used names for African- and Arab-Americans that were “certainly racially insensitive, particularly when they’re focused on one or two demographics.”
Garrison also failed to report the Snapchat video to supervisors and was not truthful when making statements to investigators, Craig said.
Attorneys for the police union haven’t replied to a phone message seeking comment.
Police departments across the country are being scrutinized and criticized for their treatment of African-Americans and other people of color. Protests over the shootings of black men by white officers have upturned dozens of cities in recent years.
The audit “should be used as a template to address racism precinct by precinct and in special policing units,” said Kenneth Reed, spokesman for the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality.
“The coalition challenges Chief Craig to continue audits for each precinct,” Reed said.
The misconduct investigations into Garrison and Steele ran parallel to the probe that revealed the 6th Precinct was “racially divided,” Craig said.
“During this audit, some referred to the racial insensitivities that was demonstrated by some that this was the 6th Precinct’s dirty little secret. When comments were made, supervisors were pretty much non-responsive. Some of the comments were made around the station, some in the field,” he said.
One officer told investigators that in January 2015, Garrison saw a white man walking in the cold, called him a “tax-paying citizen” and gave the man a ride to his destination. Later in the shift, the officers saw a black man carrying what appeared to be bags of groceries. The other officer asked if they were going to give the black man a ride. Garrison replied “no, we’re not” and kept driving, Craig said.
“I found her testimony consistent with the behaviors being alleged,” he added.
“This is an opportunity for us to set a model for the department,” Craig said. “There’s going to be some change at the 6th, relative to some supervisors and some managers.”
Activist and Detroit pastor Maurice Hardwick, who joined Craig at Tuesday’s news conference, said the Steele video and revelations about problems in the 6th Precinct are upsetting.
“This is a very sad occasion,” Hardwick said. “But it’s also a light in the dark tunnel that we’re looking to make changes.”
NYU Professor Accuses NYPD, Transit Officials of Using Broken MetroCard Machines As Excuse to Target Black Commuters
By Tanasia Kenney - atlanta black star
March 12, 2019
A New York University professor was issued a summons earlier this year after jumping the turnstile at a Harlem subway station where the MetroCard machines were broken.
Now, a local advocacy group is demanding the NYPD’s inspector general investigate racial disparities in police enforcement of fare evasion in the city’s subways.
In a letter, the Legal Aid Society called on Inspector General Phil Eure to look into a ticket professor Terrance Coffie received after bypassing the turnstile at the St. Nicholas Avenue station in January, the New York Daily News reported. Coffie, an adjunct professor who teaches about community policing and discretionary enforcement, recalled that none of the station’s three MetroCard machines were properly working that day.
Thus, he was faced with the dilemma of either being late to work or using the station’s security gate to catch his train.
The professor said he didn’t realize his MetroCard, a reloadable card used to ride the city’s transit system, was out of cash until he was at the station headed to work Jan. 11. Several commuters were huddled around the station’s three machines, but Coffie didn’t think much of it. He soon learned the large crowd had formed because the machines were only taking coins.
“I don’t walk around with three dollars worth of coins in the morning,” he told the New York Daily News.
Like hundreds of other morning commuters hurrying to get to work, Coffie bypassed the turnstile and went through the security gate instead. Moments later, the professor said he was stopped by four plain-clothes police officers who ticketed him for fare evasion.
Coffie alerted police to the malfunctioning MetroCard machines, an issue officers said the department and Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials were already aware of.
“That’s when the situation really kicked in,” he recalled. “Are you saying to me that you are consciously aware that there is a malfunction, but instead of assisting the patrons, what you chose to do is be in a disclosed location to surveil the situation and issue summonses?”
The professor saw the indent as a case of police exploiting the broken MetroCard machines in order to ticket subway riders in minority neighborhoods. Coffie said he reached down in his pocket for his phone to film his encounter with officers, but was threatened with arrest.
In the end, he was issued a $100 ticket and everyone walked away safely.
Lawyers with the Legal Aid society agreed with Coffie’s assertion, however, and accused the NYPD of intentionally targeting minority communities with “fare evasion strike teams.” Ben Rutkin-Beaker, a lawyer with the organization, called it a “wrong-headed approach to try to bridge budget woes on the backs of riders.”
The NYPD and transit officials have denied the claims, saying the agencies are “committed to a fair response to a citywide problem.” As reported by the New York Daily News, fare evasion costs the city’s transit system almost $215 million each year. Moreover, data shows that almost 90 percent of tickets for fare skipping are issued to Black and Latino riders.
“The NYPD has implemented a new fare evasion policy, moving from arrest to summonses, and continues to work closely with the MTA to increase awareness with signage giving people very direct warnings that fare evasion is illegal,” the police department said in a statement.
Commuters can appeal summonses online.
Now, a local advocacy group is demanding the NYPD’s inspector general investigate racial disparities in police enforcement of fare evasion in the city’s subways.
In a letter, the Legal Aid Society called on Inspector General Phil Eure to look into a ticket professor Terrance Coffie received after bypassing the turnstile at the St. Nicholas Avenue station in January, the New York Daily News reported. Coffie, an adjunct professor who teaches about community policing and discretionary enforcement, recalled that none of the station’s three MetroCard machines were properly working that day.
Thus, he was faced with the dilemma of either being late to work or using the station’s security gate to catch his train.
The professor said he didn’t realize his MetroCard, a reloadable card used to ride the city’s transit system, was out of cash until he was at the station headed to work Jan. 11. Several commuters were huddled around the station’s three machines, but Coffie didn’t think much of it. He soon learned the large crowd had formed because the machines were only taking coins.
“I don’t walk around with three dollars worth of coins in the morning,” he told the New York Daily News.
Like hundreds of other morning commuters hurrying to get to work, Coffie bypassed the turnstile and went through the security gate instead. Moments later, the professor said he was stopped by four plain-clothes police officers who ticketed him for fare evasion.
Coffie alerted police to the malfunctioning MetroCard machines, an issue officers said the department and Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials were already aware of.
“That’s when the situation really kicked in,” he recalled. “Are you saying to me that you are consciously aware that there is a malfunction, but instead of assisting the patrons, what you chose to do is be in a disclosed location to surveil the situation and issue summonses?”
The professor saw the indent as a case of police exploiting the broken MetroCard machines in order to ticket subway riders in minority neighborhoods. Coffie said he reached down in his pocket for his phone to film his encounter with officers, but was threatened with arrest.
In the end, he was issued a $100 ticket and everyone walked away safely.
Lawyers with the Legal Aid society agreed with Coffie’s assertion, however, and accused the NYPD of intentionally targeting minority communities with “fare evasion strike teams.” Ben Rutkin-Beaker, a lawyer with the organization, called it a “wrong-headed approach to try to bridge budget woes on the backs of riders.”
The NYPD and transit officials have denied the claims, saying the agencies are “committed to a fair response to a citywide problem.” As reported by the New York Daily News, fare evasion costs the city’s transit system almost $215 million each year. Moreover, data shows that almost 90 percent of tickets for fare skipping are issued to Black and Latino riders.
“The NYPD has implemented a new fare evasion policy, moving from arrest to summonses, and continues to work closely with the MTA to increase awareness with signage giving people very direct warnings that fare evasion is illegal,” the police department said in a statement.
Commuters can appeal summonses online.
Two NYPD Cops Coerced Sex With a Teen in Their Custody — and Prosecutors Just Dropped Rape Charges
Natasha Lennard - the intercept
March 7 2019, 11:57 a.m.
ANNA CHAMBERS COULD not consent to sex when, in September 2017, the then-18-year-old was arrested, handcuffed, and taken into the unmarked van of New York Police Department detectives Richard Hall and Edward Martins.
The case should have been clear-cut from the moment a hospital rape kit found semen matching Martins’s and Hall’s DNA inside Chambers (who has used a pseudonym throughout her ordeal to protect her privacy). When the two cops, who have since been fired, claimed that the sex with the detained teenager had been consensual, it beggared belief and revealed a chilling loophole in the New York penal code. At the time, state law did not assert the most obvious of facts: that a person in police custody cannot consent to sex. But, owing to Anna Chambers’s case, the law has since been rightly changed.
On Wednesday, the Brooklyn district attorney tasked with prosecuting the former officers dropped all the rape charges, as well as those for other sexual crimes. That means the cops, Hall and Martins, will face trial only for official misconduct and bribery for the rape of Anna Chambers. Following the flawed letter of an outdated penal code, the prosecutors chose police impunity over justice.
“It’s disgusting,” Chambers’s attorney Michael David told The Intercept on Wednesday night. “They were cops, they raped her, and they’re getting away with it. Look at the message this sends to the public.”
Chambers’s ordeal with the legal system represents every sexual assault victim’s worst fears. From the moment her case became public, tabloids highlighted social media photos in which Chambers appeared scantily clad and questioned her character. In court, her every word was dissected and her credibility continuously questioned. All this despite the fact that in this case, her testimony should have been largely irrelevant, given the DNA evidence and the defendants’ own admissions that they had committed sex acts with a detained teen.
“They twisted everything she said in order to shame and smear her,” David said.
Last March, specifically in response to outcry over Chambers’s case, the New York State Senate unanimously passed a bill stating that when a person is “under arrest, detention, or otherwise in actual custody” by a police officer or other law enforcement official, that person is incapable of consenting to a sexual encounter. That is, under the current law, Hall and Martins’s admission would amount to an admission of rape.
In a statement on dropping the charges, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office agreed that such sexual conduct should be a crime, but noted “that was not the law at the time of the incident.” The prosecutors added, “Because of this and because of unforeseen and serious credibility issues that arose over the past year and our ethical obligations under the rules of professional conduct, we are precluded from proceeding with the rape charges.”
ANNA CHAMBERS WILL herself receive no justice from the law she helped fix by speaking out. “Everything we feared could play out in this case seems to be playing out,” New York City Council Member Mark Treyger told The Intercept. Treyger, upon hearing of Chambers’s case, was the first public official to call for a change in state legislation. “It’s a dark and tragic day for our justice system. I deeply worry about the chilling effect on other sexual assault victims, especially when it comes to law enforcement.”
Treyger told The Intercept that he plans to speak with city council leadership and members of the state legislature to investigate what additional steps might be possible to take in light of what he called a “sickening decision” on the part of prosecutors. “At the very least,” he said, “we need to raise awareness, to tell victims like Anna Chambers that many people do stand with them.”
Chambers’s attorney added that he will be writing a letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, seeking to pursue a federal civil rights violation against Hall and Martins. He also said that he is moving “full steam ahead” with an ongoing civil case against the former detectives and the city of New York. In filings from the civil case shown to The Intercept, the detectives’ attorney advised them both to assert their Fifth Amendment privileges against self-incrimination when asked whether they had raped Chambers.
To say that Hall and Martins got away with rape by virtue of a legal loophole would be too generous to the prosecutors. While the ex-cops’ defense was only possible because of a previous flaw in the penal code, the sheer fact that Chambers, a 5-foot-2 teenager, was handcuffed and in the custody of two detectives should have foreclosed the very possibility of claims to uncoerced sex. Instead, the case turned to focus on Chambers’s credibility and the consistency of details in her testimony.
The victim was submitted to a level of scrutiny rarely applied to any police officer in any legal proceeding. “Prosecutors generally don’t see insurmountable ethical problems in prosecuting cases, let alone drop cases, when police or prosecution witnesses make prior statements that might appear, or that are, inconsistent with subsequent statements,” New York-based civil rights lawyer Gideon Oliver told The Intercept. “The Brooklyn DA’s Office is no exception; it prosecutes cases based on testimony from witnesses and complainants with ‘serious credibility issues’ every day. The DA made a political decision to do different in Anna Chambers’ case.”
This was no mere legal technicality. It was a profound moral failing on the part of our justice system.
The case should have been clear-cut from the moment a hospital rape kit found semen matching Martins’s and Hall’s DNA inside Chambers (who has used a pseudonym throughout her ordeal to protect her privacy). When the two cops, who have since been fired, claimed that the sex with the detained teenager had been consensual, it beggared belief and revealed a chilling loophole in the New York penal code. At the time, state law did not assert the most obvious of facts: that a person in police custody cannot consent to sex. But, owing to Anna Chambers’s case, the law has since been rightly changed.
On Wednesday, the Brooklyn district attorney tasked with prosecuting the former officers dropped all the rape charges, as well as those for other sexual crimes. That means the cops, Hall and Martins, will face trial only for official misconduct and bribery for the rape of Anna Chambers. Following the flawed letter of an outdated penal code, the prosecutors chose police impunity over justice.
“It’s disgusting,” Chambers’s attorney Michael David told The Intercept on Wednesday night. “They were cops, they raped her, and they’re getting away with it. Look at the message this sends to the public.”
Chambers’s ordeal with the legal system represents every sexual assault victim’s worst fears. From the moment her case became public, tabloids highlighted social media photos in which Chambers appeared scantily clad and questioned her character. In court, her every word was dissected and her credibility continuously questioned. All this despite the fact that in this case, her testimony should have been largely irrelevant, given the DNA evidence and the defendants’ own admissions that they had committed sex acts with a detained teen.
“They twisted everything she said in order to shame and smear her,” David said.
Last March, specifically in response to outcry over Chambers’s case, the New York State Senate unanimously passed a bill stating that when a person is “under arrest, detention, or otherwise in actual custody” by a police officer or other law enforcement official, that person is incapable of consenting to a sexual encounter. That is, under the current law, Hall and Martins’s admission would amount to an admission of rape.
In a statement on dropping the charges, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office agreed that such sexual conduct should be a crime, but noted “that was not the law at the time of the incident.” The prosecutors added, “Because of this and because of unforeseen and serious credibility issues that arose over the past year and our ethical obligations under the rules of professional conduct, we are precluded from proceeding with the rape charges.”
ANNA CHAMBERS WILL herself receive no justice from the law she helped fix by speaking out. “Everything we feared could play out in this case seems to be playing out,” New York City Council Member Mark Treyger told The Intercept. Treyger, upon hearing of Chambers’s case, was the first public official to call for a change in state legislation. “It’s a dark and tragic day for our justice system. I deeply worry about the chilling effect on other sexual assault victims, especially when it comes to law enforcement.”
Treyger told The Intercept that he plans to speak with city council leadership and members of the state legislature to investigate what additional steps might be possible to take in light of what he called a “sickening decision” on the part of prosecutors. “At the very least,” he said, “we need to raise awareness, to tell victims like Anna Chambers that many people do stand with them.”
Chambers’s attorney added that he will be writing a letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, seeking to pursue a federal civil rights violation against Hall and Martins. He also said that he is moving “full steam ahead” with an ongoing civil case against the former detectives and the city of New York. In filings from the civil case shown to The Intercept, the detectives’ attorney advised them both to assert their Fifth Amendment privileges against self-incrimination when asked whether they had raped Chambers.
To say that Hall and Martins got away with rape by virtue of a legal loophole would be too generous to the prosecutors. While the ex-cops’ defense was only possible because of a previous flaw in the penal code, the sheer fact that Chambers, a 5-foot-2 teenager, was handcuffed and in the custody of two detectives should have foreclosed the very possibility of claims to uncoerced sex. Instead, the case turned to focus on Chambers’s credibility and the consistency of details in her testimony.
The victim was submitted to a level of scrutiny rarely applied to any police officer in any legal proceeding. “Prosecutors generally don’t see insurmountable ethical problems in prosecuting cases, let alone drop cases, when police or prosecution witnesses make prior statements that might appear, or that are, inconsistent with subsequent statements,” New York-based civil rights lawyer Gideon Oliver told The Intercept. “The Brooklyn DA’s Office is no exception; it prosecutes cases based on testimony from witnesses and complainants with ‘serious credibility issues’ every day. The DA made a political decision to do different in Anna Chambers’ case.”
This was no mere legal technicality. It was a profound moral failing on the part of our justice system.
Former Palm Beach officer found guilty of manslaughter, attempted murder
miami news 7
3/7/19
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A fired Palm Beach police officer was convicted as charged of manslaughter and attempted murder Thursday for the fatal 2015 shooting of a stranded black motorist, becoming the first officer in the state to be convicted of an on-duty shooting in 30 years.
Nouman Raja, 41, now faces a possible life sentence for the death of Corey Jones, 31. The four-man, two-woman jury had deliberated for about four hours before telling the judge they had reached their decision.
Raja did not react as verdict was read, while about 25 relatives and supporters of Jones looked on, some weeping quietly. One said “the sweetest sound was the click of those handcuffs” after Raja was led from the courtroom. He is one of very few police officers convicted of an on-duty shooting nationwide. Judge Joseph Marx set sentencing for April 26.
Prosecutors said Raja escalated what should have been a routine interaction into a deadly confrontation at 3:15 a.m. on Oct. 18, 2015.
Raja, working in plain clothes, drove his unmarked van the wrong way up an off ramp, stopping feet from Jones’ broken-down SUV. The prosecutor said Raja never identified himself and acted so aggressively that Jones, 31, had to think he was about to be carjacked or killed. That caused Jones, a concealed weapons permit holder, to grab his gun and run, but Raja kept firing, they said.
Jones, a housing inspector and part-time drummer, had been returning home from a nightclub performance when his vehicle stalled. He had purchased a .38-caliber handgun days earlier to protect his $10,000 drum set, which was in the SUV.
Raja was wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a baseball cap as part of an auto burglary investigation team when he spotted Jones’ SUV. He thought it was empty, but Jones was inside, talking to a tow truck dispatcher on a recorded line. Raja’s supervisor testified the officer had been told to don a police vest to identify himself if he approached a civilian. He did not. Prosecutors also questioned why Raja didn’t pull out the badge he had in his pocket.
The recording shows Jones saying “Huh?” as his door opens. Raja yells, “You good?” Jones says he is. Raja replies twice, “Really?” with Jones replying “Yeah.”
Suddenly, Raja shouts at Jones to raise his hands, using an expletive. Jones replies “Hold on!” and Raja repeats his demand.
Prosecutors believe Jones pulled his gun and ran. Raja fired three shots and Jones ran down an embankment. Prosecutors said he threw his gun, which was found 125 feet (38 meters) from his body, but Raja fired three more times, 10 seconds after the first volley.
Jones was killed by a bullet through his heart. A medical examiner testified that Jones would have dropped feet from where the fatal shot struck him. He also had been shot once in each arm.
Prosecutors said Raja, not knowing of the tow-truck dispatcher recording, tried to deceive investigators. He told them in a video-recorded interview hours after the shooting he said “Police, can I help you?” as Jones jumped from the SUV. He told investigators Jones then leapt backward and pointed his gun, forcing him to fire. Raja said Jones ran but turned and again pointed his gun, forcing him to fire the second volley.
Prosecutors charged Raja with manslaughter because they believed his actions created the confrontation and showed “culpable negligence,” meaning a “reckless disregard” or “conscious indifference” for Jones’ life. They charged him with attempted first-degree murder because they believed that while they couldn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt which of the six shots killed him, the second volley was a conscious effort to kill Jones as he ran away.
Raja’s attorneys said Jones’ initial “Huh?” shows he identified himself — the tape picked up something unintelligible and faint.
The last Florida officer tried for an on-duty killing was Miami’s William Lozano in 1989. The Hispanic officer fatally shot a black motorcyclist who he said tried to hit him. A passenger died when the motorcycle crashed. The deaths resulted in three days of rioting.
Lozano was convicted of two manslaughter counts in a Miami trial, but an appeals court dismissed the verdict, saying the case should have been moved because of racial tensions. Lozano was acquitted at a 1993 retrial in Orlando.
Palm Beach Gardens fired Raja shortly after the shooting. He had been under house arrest since he was charged in 2016.
Nouman Raja, 41, now faces a possible life sentence for the death of Corey Jones, 31. The four-man, two-woman jury had deliberated for about four hours before telling the judge they had reached their decision.
Raja did not react as verdict was read, while about 25 relatives and supporters of Jones looked on, some weeping quietly. One said “the sweetest sound was the click of those handcuffs” after Raja was led from the courtroom. He is one of very few police officers convicted of an on-duty shooting nationwide. Judge Joseph Marx set sentencing for April 26.
Prosecutors said Raja escalated what should have been a routine interaction into a deadly confrontation at 3:15 a.m. on Oct. 18, 2015.
Raja, working in plain clothes, drove his unmarked van the wrong way up an off ramp, stopping feet from Jones’ broken-down SUV. The prosecutor said Raja never identified himself and acted so aggressively that Jones, 31, had to think he was about to be carjacked or killed. That caused Jones, a concealed weapons permit holder, to grab his gun and run, but Raja kept firing, they said.
Jones, a housing inspector and part-time drummer, had been returning home from a nightclub performance when his vehicle stalled. He had purchased a .38-caliber handgun days earlier to protect his $10,000 drum set, which was in the SUV.
Raja was wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a baseball cap as part of an auto burglary investigation team when he spotted Jones’ SUV. He thought it was empty, but Jones was inside, talking to a tow truck dispatcher on a recorded line. Raja’s supervisor testified the officer had been told to don a police vest to identify himself if he approached a civilian. He did not. Prosecutors also questioned why Raja didn’t pull out the badge he had in his pocket.
The recording shows Jones saying “Huh?” as his door opens. Raja yells, “You good?” Jones says he is. Raja replies twice, “Really?” with Jones replying “Yeah.”
Suddenly, Raja shouts at Jones to raise his hands, using an expletive. Jones replies “Hold on!” and Raja repeats his demand.
Prosecutors believe Jones pulled his gun and ran. Raja fired three shots and Jones ran down an embankment. Prosecutors said he threw his gun, which was found 125 feet (38 meters) from his body, but Raja fired three more times, 10 seconds after the first volley.
Jones was killed by a bullet through his heart. A medical examiner testified that Jones would have dropped feet from where the fatal shot struck him. He also had been shot once in each arm.
Prosecutors said Raja, not knowing of the tow-truck dispatcher recording, tried to deceive investigators. He told them in a video-recorded interview hours after the shooting he said “Police, can I help you?” as Jones jumped from the SUV. He told investigators Jones then leapt backward and pointed his gun, forcing him to fire. Raja said Jones ran but turned and again pointed his gun, forcing him to fire the second volley.
Prosecutors charged Raja with manslaughter because they believed his actions created the confrontation and showed “culpable negligence,” meaning a “reckless disregard” or “conscious indifference” for Jones’ life. They charged him with attempted first-degree murder because they believed that while they couldn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt which of the six shots killed him, the second volley was a conscious effort to kill Jones as he ran away.
Raja’s attorneys said Jones’ initial “Huh?” shows he identified himself — the tape picked up something unintelligible and faint.
The last Florida officer tried for an on-duty killing was Miami’s William Lozano in 1989. The Hispanic officer fatally shot a black motorcyclist who he said tried to hit him. A passenger died when the motorcycle crashed. The deaths resulted in three days of rioting.
Lozano was convicted of two manslaughter counts in a Miami trial, but an appeals court dismissed the verdict, saying the case should have been moved because of racial tensions. Lozano was acquitted at a 1993 retrial in Orlando.
Palm Beach Gardens fired Raja shortly after the shooting. He had been under house arrest since he was charged in 2016.
Chicago cop files ‘whistleblower’ claim after CPD asked him to lie about shooting of unarmed teen: lawsuit
Dominique Jackson - raw story
04 MAR 2019 AT 17:16 ET
On Monday, Chicago police Sgt. Isaac Lambert filed a lawsuit against top officials in the detective bureau after they attempted to “cover up” crucial details about a shooting involving an “unarmed teen with disabilities,” the Chicago Tribune is reporting.
Lambert was assigned to investigate the shooting between unarmed Ricardo Hayesand off-duty police Sgt. Khalil Muhammad.
Lambert claims that he was let go after he refused to falsify the police report in which his bosses demanded he identify Muhammad as the “victim.”
Lambert said he was asked to “mischaracterize” the shooting as “an aggravated assault” against Muhammad by Hayes, even though Hayes was an unarmed teen and did not pose a threat.
“The allegations stem from the early morning shooting of Ricardo ‘Ricky’ Hayes, then 18, by an off-duty Chicago police officer in August 2017 in the Morgan Park neighborhood. Hayes, said by Lambert’s lawyers to have ‘profound intellectual and developmental disabilities,’ was reported missing about three hours before the shooting. He was shot and wounded in the arm and chest,” a report from The Tribune explained.
“The legal action by Lambert, filed under the Illinois Whistleblower Act, alleged that Muhammad called Hayes over to his personal vehicle after spotting him ‘skipping and running’ near his residence about 5 a.m. Hayes, who was about 20 feet from the vehicle, took about four steps toward Muhammad’s vehicle when the sergeant opened fire,” the report added.
Read the full report here.
Lambert was assigned to investigate the shooting between unarmed Ricardo Hayesand off-duty police Sgt. Khalil Muhammad.
Lambert claims that he was let go after he refused to falsify the police report in which his bosses demanded he identify Muhammad as the “victim.”
Lambert said he was asked to “mischaracterize” the shooting as “an aggravated assault” against Muhammad by Hayes, even though Hayes was an unarmed teen and did not pose a threat.
“The allegations stem from the early morning shooting of Ricardo ‘Ricky’ Hayes, then 18, by an off-duty Chicago police officer in August 2017 in the Morgan Park neighborhood. Hayes, said by Lambert’s lawyers to have ‘profound intellectual and developmental disabilities,’ was reported missing about three hours before the shooting. He was shot and wounded in the arm and chest,” a report from The Tribune explained.
“The legal action by Lambert, filed under the Illinois Whistleblower Act, alleged that Muhammad called Hayes over to his personal vehicle after spotting him ‘skipping and running’ near his residence about 5 a.m. Hayes, who was about 20 feet from the vehicle, took about four steps toward Muhammad’s vehicle when the sergeant opened fire,” the report added.
Read the full report here.
trump's doj sanctions murder of black people!!!
DOJ: No civil rights charge in deadly Tulsa police shooting
ap news
3/1/19
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — There is insufficient evidence to pursue federal civil rights charges against a white former Tulsa police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black man, the Department of Justice said Friday.
U.S. Attorney Trent Shores announced the closure of the investigation into whether Betty Shelby willfully used unreasonable force against Terence Crutcher when she shot and killed him in September 2016.
“The Department of Justice devoted significant resources to this investigation to ensure that a thorough review was undertaken. Attorneys from both the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office worked closely with the FBI to examine the evidence and review applicable law,” Shores said in a statement.
A Tulsa County jury acquitted Shelby in May 2017 in the shooting death of Crutcher, who was holding his hands above his head when he was shot. Shelby testified she fired her weapon out of fear because Crutcher didn’t obey her commands and appeared to reach inside his SUV for what she thought was a gun. Crutcher was unarmed.
“We’re disappointed, but unfortunately we’re not surprised,” said Demario Solomon-Simmons, an attorney for Crutcher’s family. “The number one reason is that the system is set up to protect officers like Betty Shelby. The standard (of proof) is so high, it’s the highest standard in the legal system, to prove that someone willfully and intentionally violated someone else’s civil rights.”
Shelby resigned from the Tulsa Police Department following her acquittal.
A federal lawsuit filed by Crutcher’s family against the City of Tulsa and Shelby still is pending in federal court.
Shores said a team that included some of the department’s most experienced prosecutors and FBI agents examined all of the evidence in the case, including enhanced video footage of the shooting . The investigation aimed to determine whether Shelby willfully violated federal law, which Shores said required prosecutors to determine that Shelby acted with the “deliberate and specific intent” to do something illegal.
“Any allegation of law enforcement misconduct and willful deprivation of civil rights is taken seriously,” Shores said. “However, the evidence in this case did not support pursuing criminal prosecution.”
Crutcher’s killing was among a spate of officer-involved shootings in recent years that helped galvanize the Black Lives Matter movement and prompted calls for more police accountability.
U.S. Attorney Trent Shores announced the closure of the investigation into whether Betty Shelby willfully used unreasonable force against Terence Crutcher when she shot and killed him in September 2016.
“The Department of Justice devoted significant resources to this investigation to ensure that a thorough review was undertaken. Attorneys from both the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office worked closely with the FBI to examine the evidence and review applicable law,” Shores said in a statement.
A Tulsa County jury acquitted Shelby in May 2017 in the shooting death of Crutcher, who was holding his hands above his head when he was shot. Shelby testified she fired her weapon out of fear because Crutcher didn’t obey her commands and appeared to reach inside his SUV for what she thought was a gun. Crutcher was unarmed.
“We’re disappointed, but unfortunately we’re not surprised,” said Demario Solomon-Simmons, an attorney for Crutcher’s family. “The number one reason is that the system is set up to protect officers like Betty Shelby. The standard (of proof) is so high, it’s the highest standard in the legal system, to prove that someone willfully and intentionally violated someone else’s civil rights.”
Shelby resigned from the Tulsa Police Department following her acquittal.
A federal lawsuit filed by Crutcher’s family against the City of Tulsa and Shelby still is pending in federal court.
Shores said a team that included some of the department’s most experienced prosecutors and FBI agents examined all of the evidence in the case, including enhanced video footage of the shooting . The investigation aimed to determine whether Shelby willfully violated federal law, which Shores said required prosecutors to determine that Shelby acted with the “deliberate and specific intent” to do something illegal.
“Any allegation of law enforcement misconduct and willful deprivation of civil rights is taken seriously,” Shores said. “However, the evidence in this case did not support pursuing criminal prosecution.”
Crutcher’s killing was among a spate of officer-involved shootings in recent years that helped galvanize the Black Lives Matter movement and prompted calls for more police accountability.
Exclusive: video shows Portland officers made deal with far-right group leader
Footage obtained by the Guardian shows the officers had probable cause to arrest members of the Patriot Prayer group
Jason Wilson in Portland, Oregon
the guardian
Fri 1 Mar 2019 01.00 EST
A far-right leader and Portland police officers made a deal to avoid the arrest of members of the Patriot Prayer group, despite the officers having probable cause to do so, according to video footage obtained by the Guardian.
The video, excerpted from livestream by Patriot Prayer group leader Joey Gibson, shows a violent demonstration in Portland on 3 June 2018. In it, Portland police bureau officers say that the deal had been authorized by Lt Jeff Niiya, then commander of PPB’s rapid response team, who has been recently criticized for having an overly friendly relationship with Gibson.
Patriot Prayer’s stated beliefs are not overtly white supremacist, but critics say its protests and gatherings attract racist elements and it is often involved in violent confrontations.
The video excerpt shows two police officers approaching Gibson near the end of the day. One officer says, “I just talked to Jeff Niiya, and he asked me to tell you that he has probable cause to arrest a couple of the guys here.
“They’ve arrested the other side, so it’s not singling you guys out,” the officer adds.
“But it’s time to go,” the officer says. “If you guys can go home, there won’t be any arrests.”
After Gibson asks who the officers are going to arrest, the officer says: “You want me to tell you? These guys here.” At which point Gibson’s camera turns towards where Tusitala “Tiny” Toese and another man are sitting wearing Patriot Prayer T-shirts.
Toese was not among the four arrests that Portland police announced in the wake of the rally, which saw Toese brawling with counter-protesters in the streets of the city’s downtown area.
Zakir Khan, spokesman for the Oregon chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) said: “I’m troubled to see such highly discretionary and arbitrary policing happening.
“Undoubtedly, when officers are given this much latitude in a historically racist city and state, that latitude will lead to biased outcomes. Portlanders of color have fallen victim to this system for decades prior to these recent events,” Khan added.
Asked about the video, a PPB spokeswoman, Lt Kristina Jones, said in an email: “There is an open investigation, so I am unable to comment on pending personnel matters. I have forwarded the video to our investigators for review.”
Earlier this month, Niiya stepped aside amid scandal, while explosive texts between him and Gibson are subject to an independent investigation initiated by Mayor Ted Wheeler.
Niiya has been broadly criticized for an overly friendly attitude to Gibson in text exchanges. In one exchange in December 2017, he tells Gibson that PPB will not arrest Toese, despite the existence of a warrant.
“Just make sure he doesn’t do anything which may draw our attention,” Niiya texts Gibson. “If he still has the warrant in the system (I don’t run you guys so I don’t personally know) the officers could arrest him. I don’t see a need to arrest on the warrant unless there is a reason.”
In that exchange he also says that officers have previously ignored Toese’s warrants.
Gibson confirmed the 3 June conversation, but defended Niiya’s policing methods, which he told the Guardian were “consistent with every single officer I have been in communication with all over the country”.
“He is always respectful. His main thing is de-escalation, that’s what he was always talking about.
“There are several text messages where he is begging me to leave Portland,” he added.
Gibson’s remarks resembled the defense of Niiya made by the Portland Police Association union.
Just five days after the 3 June protest, Toese and another of the far-right Proud Boys group, Donovan Flippo, who has also been a regular attendee at Patriot Prayer rallies, allegedly attacked a man in Portland. Last Wednesday, they were indicted by a grand jury over that incident.
Asked about the indictment in a Facebook message, Toese wrote: “I will stand court and defend my innocence.”
Niiya’s texts have led to renewed criticisms of the city’s ability to manage repeated protests by the far right group, and accusations of police bias.
A “listening session” convened to air public discussion about Niiya’s texts on 21 February was dominated by bitter criticisms of the PPB.
The video, excerpted from livestream by Patriot Prayer group leader Joey Gibson, shows a violent demonstration in Portland on 3 June 2018. In it, Portland police bureau officers say that the deal had been authorized by Lt Jeff Niiya, then commander of PPB’s rapid response team, who has been recently criticized for having an overly friendly relationship with Gibson.
Patriot Prayer’s stated beliefs are not overtly white supremacist, but critics say its protests and gatherings attract racist elements and it is often involved in violent confrontations.
The video excerpt shows two police officers approaching Gibson near the end of the day. One officer says, “I just talked to Jeff Niiya, and he asked me to tell you that he has probable cause to arrest a couple of the guys here.
“They’ve arrested the other side, so it’s not singling you guys out,” the officer adds.
“But it’s time to go,” the officer says. “If you guys can go home, there won’t be any arrests.”
After Gibson asks who the officers are going to arrest, the officer says: “You want me to tell you? These guys here.” At which point Gibson’s camera turns towards where Tusitala “Tiny” Toese and another man are sitting wearing Patriot Prayer T-shirts.
Toese was not among the four arrests that Portland police announced in the wake of the rally, which saw Toese brawling with counter-protesters in the streets of the city’s downtown area.
Zakir Khan, spokesman for the Oregon chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) said: “I’m troubled to see such highly discretionary and arbitrary policing happening.
“Undoubtedly, when officers are given this much latitude in a historically racist city and state, that latitude will lead to biased outcomes. Portlanders of color have fallen victim to this system for decades prior to these recent events,” Khan added.
Asked about the video, a PPB spokeswoman, Lt Kristina Jones, said in an email: “There is an open investigation, so I am unable to comment on pending personnel matters. I have forwarded the video to our investigators for review.”
Earlier this month, Niiya stepped aside amid scandal, while explosive texts between him and Gibson are subject to an independent investigation initiated by Mayor Ted Wheeler.
Niiya has been broadly criticized for an overly friendly attitude to Gibson in text exchanges. In one exchange in December 2017, he tells Gibson that PPB will not arrest Toese, despite the existence of a warrant.
“Just make sure he doesn’t do anything which may draw our attention,” Niiya texts Gibson. “If he still has the warrant in the system (I don’t run you guys so I don’t personally know) the officers could arrest him. I don’t see a need to arrest on the warrant unless there is a reason.”
In that exchange he also says that officers have previously ignored Toese’s warrants.
Gibson confirmed the 3 June conversation, but defended Niiya’s policing methods, which he told the Guardian were “consistent with every single officer I have been in communication with all over the country”.
“He is always respectful. His main thing is de-escalation, that’s what he was always talking about.
“There are several text messages where he is begging me to leave Portland,” he added.
Gibson’s remarks resembled the defense of Niiya made by the Portland Police Association union.
Just five days after the 3 June protest, Toese and another of the far-right Proud Boys group, Donovan Flippo, who has also been a regular attendee at Patriot Prayer rallies, allegedly attacked a man in Portland. Last Wednesday, they were indicted by a grand jury over that incident.
Asked about the indictment in a Facebook message, Toese wrote: “I will stand court and defend my innocence.”
Niiya’s texts have led to renewed criticisms of the city’s ability to manage repeated protests by the far right group, and accusations of police bias.
A “listening session” convened to air public discussion about Niiya’s texts on 21 February was dominated by bitter criticisms of the PPB.
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Reasonable Force
The everyday assault on Blue Lives.
By Khalil Bendib ~ Other Words.com
