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June 22, 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
*St. Louis Circuit Attorney Won’t Review Cases from Cops Whose Racist Facebook Posts Were Exposed by Watchdog Group(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Felony Charges Dismissed Against Miami Cop Who Shot Black Caregiver With Arms Raised
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Cops defend tackling and handcuffing 12-year-old boy for roughhousing with his cousin
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Police fired 55 times at Willie McCoy. An investigation called it 'reasonable'
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Detroit police slammed for handling of neo-Nazis at Motor City Pride
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Database Uncovers Facebook Posts Exposing Pattern of Racism Among Phoenix Cops, Including Thanking George Zimmerman for Killing Trayvon Martin (ARTICLE BELOW)
*The racist roots of American policing: From slave patrols to traffic stops
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Georgia Cop Who Initially Got Away with Brutally Beating Homeless Woman Now Faces Felony Charges, Thanks to Video Footage (ARTICLE BELOW)
*Oklahoma cop claims black man has a gun — until he realizes he is being filmed: ‘He trying to shoot me’
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*N.Y. Police Commander Said Eric Garner’s Death ‘Wasn’t a Big Deal,’ New Texts Reveal
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Black teen traumatized after cop slams him into patrol car and handcuffs him during jaywalking stop
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*US BORDER PATROL IS THE MOST BRUTAL MILITIA OF ALL
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*CROWDED BORDER FORCES ICE TO TRANSPORT IMMIGRANTS BY PLANE. TRUMP’S OWN POLICIES HELPED CAUSE THIS.
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Texas Cop Tries to Arrest Wrong Man on Out-of-State Warrant in his Front Yard
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Baltimore brothers set free after 24 years in prison for wrongful murder conviction
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*GESTAPO usa FUNNIES(below)
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Won’t Review Cases from Cops Whose Racist Facebook Posts Were Exposed by Watchdog Group
By Kiersten Willis - Atlanta Black Star
June 22, 2019
A St. Louis circuit attorney has added 22 more police officers to a list of cops whose cases she won’t hear after a database exposed many of them for making racist Facebook posts.
Kimberly Gardner added the names Tuesday, June 18, following a review announced June 5 of more than 400 posts made by current and former officers in St. Louis, Missouri, by the Plain View Project.
In a letter sent to Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards and St. Louis Police Chief John Hayden Tuesday morning, Gardner said seven of the 22 officers are “permanently banned,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. That means Gardner’s office will not issue charges based on the officers’ probes, won’t apply for search warrants sought out by the officers and will not examine cases where the cops in question are essential witnesses.
As for the remaining 15 officers, a statement from Gardner’s spokeswoman said the attorney’s office will review their work “to determine conditions and reinstatement of their ability to present cases.”
Of of the 43 Facebook accounts linked to St. Louis police, 22 are tied to officers who are still employed, the watchdog group’s founder, Emily Baker-White, told the Post-Dispatch. The rest are former employees.
Among the posts from the current officers include a meme shared by Sergeant Ron Hasty in September 2017 that reads, “If the Confederate flag is racist, so is black history month.”
Officer Michael Calcaterra shared a meme in July 2013 of a laughing cop that said, “They said ‘f–k the police,’ so I said ‘f— your 911 call, I’ll get your dying homeboy when I finish my coffee.”
Gardner said in a statement that her office conducted “an extensive review” of the posts she described as “disturbing.”
“Police integrity is at the core of the community’s confidence in the criminal justice system,” Gardner wrote. “When a police officer’s integrity is compromised in this manner, it compromises the entire criminal justice system and our overall ability to pursue justice.
“After careful examination of the underlying bias contained in those social media posts, we have concluded that this bias would likely influence an officer’s ability to perform his or her duties in an unbiased manner.”
Gardner’s list of 22 follows her placing 29 officers on a so-called exclusion list as was solicited by St. Louis police Maj. Michael Sack last year. However, Chief Hayden denied Sack asked for the creation of such a list.
A spokesperson for Gardner said since then, there have been other officers put on that list, bringing the total of police whose cases she won’t hear to 59.
The business manager for the St. Louis Police Officers’ Association, Jeff Roorda, slammed the decision.
“If these officers are determined to have engaged in misconduct, we have a process,” he told the newspaper. “There’s no due process in what Kim Gardner did today. It’s just panic at the disco.”
News of Gardner adding to her “expulsion list” comes during the same week that the Philadelphia Police Department has assigned 72 officers desk duty amid racist social media posts of current officers being exposed by the same watchdog organization. It is considered the largest removal of cops from the street in Philly’s recent memory.
Kimberly Gardner added the names Tuesday, June 18, following a review announced June 5 of more than 400 posts made by current and former officers in St. Louis, Missouri, by the Plain View Project.
In a letter sent to Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards and St. Louis Police Chief John Hayden Tuesday morning, Gardner said seven of the 22 officers are “permanently banned,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. That means Gardner’s office will not issue charges based on the officers’ probes, won’t apply for search warrants sought out by the officers and will not examine cases where the cops in question are essential witnesses.
As for the remaining 15 officers, a statement from Gardner’s spokeswoman said the attorney’s office will review their work “to determine conditions and reinstatement of their ability to present cases.”
Of of the 43 Facebook accounts linked to St. Louis police, 22 are tied to officers who are still employed, the watchdog group’s founder, Emily Baker-White, told the Post-Dispatch. The rest are former employees.
Among the posts from the current officers include a meme shared by Sergeant Ron Hasty in September 2017 that reads, “If the Confederate flag is racist, so is black history month.”
Officer Michael Calcaterra shared a meme in July 2013 of a laughing cop that said, “They said ‘f–k the police,’ so I said ‘f— your 911 call, I’ll get your dying homeboy when I finish my coffee.”
Gardner said in a statement that her office conducted “an extensive review” of the posts she described as “disturbing.”
“Police integrity is at the core of the community’s confidence in the criminal justice system,” Gardner wrote. “When a police officer’s integrity is compromised in this manner, it compromises the entire criminal justice system and our overall ability to pursue justice.
“After careful examination of the underlying bias contained in those social media posts, we have concluded that this bias would likely influence an officer’s ability to perform his or her duties in an unbiased manner.”
Gardner’s list of 22 follows her placing 29 officers on a so-called exclusion list as was solicited by St. Louis police Maj. Michael Sack last year. However, Chief Hayden denied Sack asked for the creation of such a list.
A spokesperson for Gardner said since then, there have been other officers put on that list, bringing the total of police whose cases she won’t hear to 59.
The business manager for the St. Louis Police Officers’ Association, Jeff Roorda, slammed the decision.
“If these officers are determined to have engaged in misconduct, we have a process,” he told the newspaper. “There’s no due process in what Kim Gardner did today. It’s just panic at the disco.”
News of Gardner adding to her “expulsion list” comes during the same week that the Philadelphia Police Department has assigned 72 officers desk duty amid racist social media posts of current officers being exposed by the same watchdog organization. It is considered the largest removal of cops from the street in Philly’s recent memory.
Felony Charges Dismissed Against Miami Cop Who Shot Black Caregiver With Arms Raised
By MOLLY OLMSTEAD - Slate.com
JUNE 18, 20191:03 PM
Kinsey, left, and Soto, right, before the shooting.
The Washington Post
A North Miami police officer who shot the caregiver of an autistic man in distress, even though the caregiver was lying on the ground with his hands raised in the air, has been convicted on a misdemeanor charge of culpable negligence but has escaped a felony conviction. A jury on Monday dismissed two attempted manslaughter charges against the officer, according to the Miami Herald.
The 2016 incident, part of which was captured in a video that went viral afterward, sparking outrage over the shooting of yet another black man who posed no threat to the police, began when a 23-year-old man with autism named Arnaldo Rios Soto wandered away from a Miami-area mental health center. Charles Kinsey, a 47-year-old therapist from Soto’s group home, caught up to Soto at the side of a road. A passing driver saw Soto, who was holding a toy truck, and called the police, believing the man was holding a gun to his head.
When police arrived, several officers soon realized that neither Soto nor Kinsey posed a threat and that the reported gun was just a toy. Kinsey shouted to the police, “all he has is a toy truck.” He also laid down on the street, arms above his head, begging them not to shoot. At the time of the shooting, Soto was sitting next to Kinsey, still holding the toy.
The officer, Jonathan Aledda, 33, fired three times from around 50 yards away, hitting Kinsey, who later recovered, in the thigh.
Many who watched the video were skeptical that anyone could have perceived that Kinsey or Soto posed any danger, and prosecutors said Aledda had been reckless, ignoring all warnings from other officers and indications that the scenario was not a dangerous one, according to the Herald.
But Aledda testified that he believed Soto was holding Kinsey hostage and was about to shoot the man. He said he had not heard the other officers say the object Soto was holding was just a toy (according to the Herald, one officer testified that he had said so on the police radio; Aledda’s attorneys presented evidence that the officers’ radios hadn’t been working well and that the scene had generally been chaotic). And he said that when he fired his gun, he meant to hit Soto, not Kinsey. “It appeared he was screaming for mercy or for help or something,” he testified, according to the Herald. “In my mind, the white male had a gun.”
Aledda was charged with attempted manslaughter in April 2017. But in March of this year, the first trial ended with a hung jury. Aledda now faces up to a year in prison. Kinsey and Soto, who, according to his family, is traumatized from the incident, have filed lawsuits against the city of North Miami, according to the Herald.
The 2016 incident, part of which was captured in a video that went viral afterward, sparking outrage over the shooting of yet another black man who posed no threat to the police, began when a 23-year-old man with autism named Arnaldo Rios Soto wandered away from a Miami-area mental health center. Charles Kinsey, a 47-year-old therapist from Soto’s group home, caught up to Soto at the side of a road. A passing driver saw Soto, who was holding a toy truck, and called the police, believing the man was holding a gun to his head.
When police arrived, several officers soon realized that neither Soto nor Kinsey posed a threat and that the reported gun was just a toy. Kinsey shouted to the police, “all he has is a toy truck.” He also laid down on the street, arms above his head, begging them not to shoot. At the time of the shooting, Soto was sitting next to Kinsey, still holding the toy.
The officer, Jonathan Aledda, 33, fired three times from around 50 yards away, hitting Kinsey, who later recovered, in the thigh.
Many who watched the video were skeptical that anyone could have perceived that Kinsey or Soto posed any danger, and prosecutors said Aledda had been reckless, ignoring all warnings from other officers and indications that the scenario was not a dangerous one, according to the Herald.
But Aledda testified that he believed Soto was holding Kinsey hostage and was about to shoot the man. He said he had not heard the other officers say the object Soto was holding was just a toy (according to the Herald, one officer testified that he had said so on the police radio; Aledda’s attorneys presented evidence that the officers’ radios hadn’t been working well and that the scene had generally been chaotic). And he said that when he fired his gun, he meant to hit Soto, not Kinsey. “It appeared he was screaming for mercy or for help or something,” he testified, according to the Herald. “In my mind, the white male had a gun.”
Aledda was charged with attempted manslaughter in April 2017. But in March of this year, the first trial ended with a hung jury. Aledda now faces up to a year in prison. Kinsey and Soto, who, according to his family, is traumatized from the incident, have filed lawsuits against the city of North Miami, according to the Herald.
Cops defend tackling and handcuffing 12-year-old boy for roughhousing with his cousin
June 18, 2019
By Tana Ganeva - Raw Story
Police officers in Grand Rapids, Michigan, have faced an onslaught of criticism after they handcuffed and arrested a 12-year-old black boy, the Associated Press reports.
Officers claimed the boy was being violent, trying to attack a man with a wooden pole. The boy’s mother disputes that account. She claims her son was just playing with his cousin.
Carreion Baker told a local news outlet that he wasn’t aware that officers were after him, which is why he didn’t respond to their commands to stop.
“I didn’t know cops were chasing me at the time because I was too busy chasing my cousin,” said Baker. Suddenly, he was surrounded by police. “That’s when they jumped on me and handcuffed me, and then they put me in the car over there,” he told Fox 17.
The department defended the officers’ actions in a statement on Facebook.
“When the officer reached the youth on the ground, the officer placed his hands on the youth’s back and said, ‘Please stop.’ Not knowing the youth’s age or the circumstances of what was going on, the officer placed the youth in handcuffs,” they wrote.
“The youth then began to resist the officer. A large crowd already in the neighborhood observed this and became upset that a 12-year-old was being arrested. This required the assistance of additional officers until the circumstances surrounding the situation could get sorted out. While being taken to a police cruiser, the youth kicked officers.”
Baker’s mother insists police acted inappropriately.
“My son was playing with one of his cousins, ya know, chasing him down the street like he always do,” Jones said. “They started chasing my son. I’m telling, ‘Wait. Hold on. That’s his cousin. He’s playing.’ Ya know, ‘He’s only 12.’”
Officers claimed the boy was being violent, trying to attack a man with a wooden pole. The boy’s mother disputes that account. She claims her son was just playing with his cousin.
Carreion Baker told a local news outlet that he wasn’t aware that officers were after him, which is why he didn’t respond to their commands to stop.
“I didn’t know cops were chasing me at the time because I was too busy chasing my cousin,” said Baker. Suddenly, he was surrounded by police. “That’s when they jumped on me and handcuffed me, and then they put me in the car over there,” he told Fox 17.
The department defended the officers’ actions in a statement on Facebook.
“When the officer reached the youth on the ground, the officer placed his hands on the youth’s back and said, ‘Please stop.’ Not knowing the youth’s age or the circumstances of what was going on, the officer placed the youth in handcuffs,” they wrote.
“The youth then began to resist the officer. A large crowd already in the neighborhood observed this and became upset that a 12-year-old was being arrested. This required the assistance of additional officers until the circumstances surrounding the situation could get sorted out. While being taken to a police cruiser, the youth kicked officers.”
Baker’s mother insists police acted inappropriately.
“My son was playing with one of his cousins, ya know, chasing him down the street like he always do,” Jones said. “They started chasing my son. I’m telling, ‘Wait. Hold on. That’s his cousin. He’s playing.’ Ya know, ‘He’s only 12.’”
justifying murder!!!
Police fired 55 times at Willie McCoy. An investigation called it 'reasonable'
The 20-year-old aspiring rapper had been sleeping in his car at a Taco Bell when Vallejo police shot him
Sam Levin in Oakland
The Guardian
Wed 12 Jun 2019 15.41 EDT
The California police officers who killed Willie McCoy, a 20-year-old who had been sleeping in his car, fired 55 bullets at him in 3.5 seconds – which was “reasonable”, according to the city of Vallejo’s hired consultant.
Officials disclosed the extraordinary number of rounds in a report released this week, months after six policemen shot the aspiring rapper who had fallen asleep inside his car at a Taco Bell. The 9 February killing, which McCoy’s family has called an “execution by a firing squad”, sparked national outrage and has led to intense scrutiny of the Vallejo police department’s frequent use of deadly force and history of misconduct and abuse cases.
The 51-page report by David Blake, a paid “expert” and retired officer, concluded that the killing was “in line with contemporary training and police practices associated with use of deadly force”. He said “the 55 rounds fired by 6 officers in ~3.5 seconds is reasonable based upon my training and experience as a range instructor as well as through applied human factors psychology”.
Relatives of McCoy, a beloved Bay Area rapper whose career was on the rise at the time of his death, said they learned of the bullet count in news reports.
“What it says is there was never any real intention of trying to work out this situation to where my brother’s life would still be intact,” Marc McCoy, Willie’s older brother, told the Guardian on Wednesday, adding that many in the US had become numb to this level of police brutality: “Our community is so used to this type of violence.”
The six officers surrounded McCoy’s car with guns drawn after a Taco Bell employee called police to report a man unresponsive in his car in the drive-thru. The police department in the city, 30 miles north-east of San Francisco, has insisted that the officers fired out of “fear for their own safety”, alleging that McCoy had reached for a gun on his lap.
But body-camera footage, released after significant public pressure, cast doubts on parts of the police narrative. The videos only showed McCoy moving his hand to scratch his shoulder before officers opened fire. The police did not try to wake him up or announce that they were officers, and his family and their lawyers have said it seemed clear McCoy was not alert or awake when the police all opened fire.
Without an official report on the number of rounds, McCoy’s loved ones had previously been forced to rely on their own estimations after viewing his body, which was riddled with bullets in his face, chest, throat, arms and elsewhere, making him unrecognizable.
“This is an unconstitutional level of force,” said Melissa Nold, an attorney for the family, adding that the 55 bullets were another reminder of police strategy that night: “You want to ensure that this human being does not survive.”
The city agreed to pay up to $8,000 for the “expert report” on “human factors and use of force” analysis by Blake, according to contract documents obtained by the Vallejo Times-Herald. Blake has a history of authoring similar reports concluding law enforcement killings were reasonable.
He was hired as the “outside expert” to investigate the 2018 killing of Stephon Clark, an unarmed 22-year-old Sacramento man killed in his family’s backyard. Those officers claimed they mistook Clark’s cellphone for a gun, and Blake determined the fatal shots were “reasonable”.
Blake defended the high volume of bullets fired at McCoy by making inferences about the mental state of the officers. He said officers were “generally trained to fire until the threat has been neutralized” and that they probably continued to fire due in part to “acute stress” and “chaos caused by the sounds of gunfire, debris, and weapons mounted lights reflecting off the shattered windshield”.
“No officer expended all ammunition prior to stopping firing which indicates a level of self-control,” he wrote.
Nold criticized the report, saying, “Each bullet has to be justified,” and adding, of Blake: “He gets paid to defend police when they shoot people. We know who he is.”
Marc McCoy called the report “very biased”. He noted that the high volume of bullets was particularly unwarranted given that, as the body-camera footage revealed, before shooting, the officers had commented to each other that the firearm in the car did not have a magazine in it. They noted that if it were loaded, it would only have a single bullet in it.
The footage, which showed McCoy asleep for several minutes as officers pointed guns at his head, also captured a policeman saying, “I’m going to pull him out and snatch his ass,” and the officers appearing to make a plan to fire at him, with one saying: “If he reaches for it, you know what to do.”
Marc McCoy said anyone who watched the videos and learned details of the case would conclude the police actions were illegal and unjust. But under US laws, he said, police typically got away with this conduct: “Cases like this all need more attention … We’re going to have more people getting killed unnecessarily.”
One officer who fired at McCoy had previously shot and killed an unarmed man, and another was sued by the family of a teenager for police brutality.
Officials disclosed the extraordinary number of rounds in a report released this week, months after six policemen shot the aspiring rapper who had fallen asleep inside his car at a Taco Bell. The 9 February killing, which McCoy’s family has called an “execution by a firing squad”, sparked national outrage and has led to intense scrutiny of the Vallejo police department’s frequent use of deadly force and history of misconduct and abuse cases.
The 51-page report by David Blake, a paid “expert” and retired officer, concluded that the killing was “in line with contemporary training and police practices associated with use of deadly force”. He said “the 55 rounds fired by 6 officers in ~3.5 seconds is reasonable based upon my training and experience as a range instructor as well as through applied human factors psychology”.
Relatives of McCoy, a beloved Bay Area rapper whose career was on the rise at the time of his death, said they learned of the bullet count in news reports.
“What it says is there was never any real intention of trying to work out this situation to where my brother’s life would still be intact,” Marc McCoy, Willie’s older brother, told the Guardian on Wednesday, adding that many in the US had become numb to this level of police brutality: “Our community is so used to this type of violence.”
The six officers surrounded McCoy’s car with guns drawn after a Taco Bell employee called police to report a man unresponsive in his car in the drive-thru. The police department in the city, 30 miles north-east of San Francisco, has insisted that the officers fired out of “fear for their own safety”, alleging that McCoy had reached for a gun on his lap.
But body-camera footage, released after significant public pressure, cast doubts on parts of the police narrative. The videos only showed McCoy moving his hand to scratch his shoulder before officers opened fire. The police did not try to wake him up or announce that they were officers, and his family and their lawyers have said it seemed clear McCoy was not alert or awake when the police all opened fire.
Without an official report on the number of rounds, McCoy’s loved ones had previously been forced to rely on their own estimations after viewing his body, which was riddled with bullets in his face, chest, throat, arms and elsewhere, making him unrecognizable.
“This is an unconstitutional level of force,” said Melissa Nold, an attorney for the family, adding that the 55 bullets were another reminder of police strategy that night: “You want to ensure that this human being does not survive.”
The city agreed to pay up to $8,000 for the “expert report” on “human factors and use of force” analysis by Blake, according to contract documents obtained by the Vallejo Times-Herald. Blake has a history of authoring similar reports concluding law enforcement killings were reasonable.
He was hired as the “outside expert” to investigate the 2018 killing of Stephon Clark, an unarmed 22-year-old Sacramento man killed in his family’s backyard. Those officers claimed they mistook Clark’s cellphone for a gun, and Blake determined the fatal shots were “reasonable”.
Blake defended the high volume of bullets fired at McCoy by making inferences about the mental state of the officers. He said officers were “generally trained to fire until the threat has been neutralized” and that they probably continued to fire due in part to “acute stress” and “chaos caused by the sounds of gunfire, debris, and weapons mounted lights reflecting off the shattered windshield”.
“No officer expended all ammunition prior to stopping firing which indicates a level of self-control,” he wrote.
Nold criticized the report, saying, “Each bullet has to be justified,” and adding, of Blake: “He gets paid to defend police when they shoot people. We know who he is.”
Marc McCoy called the report “very biased”. He noted that the high volume of bullets was particularly unwarranted given that, as the body-camera footage revealed, before shooting, the officers had commented to each other that the firearm in the car did not have a magazine in it. They noted that if it were loaded, it would only have a single bullet in it.
The footage, which showed McCoy asleep for several minutes as officers pointed guns at his head, also captured a policeman saying, “I’m going to pull him out and snatch his ass,” and the officers appearing to make a plan to fire at him, with one saying: “If he reaches for it, you know what to do.”
Marc McCoy said anyone who watched the videos and learned details of the case would conclude the police actions were illegal and unjust. But under US laws, he said, police typically got away with this conduct: “Cases like this all need more attention … We’re going to have more people getting killed unnecessarily.”
One officer who fired at McCoy had previously shot and killed an unarmed man, and another was sued by the family of a teenager for police brutality.
Armed Neo-Nazis tried to start a Charlottesville-style riot at Detroit Pride Parade: police
June 10, 2019
By Brad Reed - Raw Story
Neo-Nazis march in downtown Detroit to protest Motor City Pride.
A group of white supremacists over the weekend tried to use the Motor City Pride Parade in Detroit as a launchpad to start another riot akin to the 2017 riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, police said on Monday.
The Detroit News reports that Detroit Police Chief James Craig told reporters on Monday that his officers over the weekend thwarted a plot by neo-Nazis to spark “Charlottesville No. 2” at the city’s LGBTQ pride festival.
However, Craig said that his officers worked to make sure the Nazis were kept separate from people participating in the festival, thus preventing them from engaging in or provoking acts of violence.
“When [the Nazis] arrived, five of their members were armed; two with long guns and three with handguns,” Craig said. “They were open-carrying. I’m told through our intelligence sources [the Nazis] wanted Charlottesville No. 2. We knew we wanted to be properly staffed, and we were.”
Craig said that his officers also worked to keep left-wing counter-demonstrators away from the Nazis.
“The one group [the Nazis] was armed,” Craig said. “We didn’t want the opposing group to assault them and respond in a way that would be violent.”
Craig also rebutted criticism that his department was “escorting” the neo-Nazis as they yelled out derogatory comments about the parade participants.
“To any critics that say we were escorting people in the National Socialist movement, we were keeping the two groups separate,” Craig said. “At one point, we escorted them to keep the opposing side away.”
The Detroit News reports that Detroit Police Chief James Craig told reporters on Monday that his officers over the weekend thwarted a plot by neo-Nazis to spark “Charlottesville No. 2” at the city’s LGBTQ pride festival.
However, Craig said that his officers worked to make sure the Nazis were kept separate from people participating in the festival, thus preventing them from engaging in or provoking acts of violence.
“When [the Nazis] arrived, five of their members were armed; two with long guns and three with handguns,” Craig said. “They were open-carrying. I’m told through our intelligence sources [the Nazis] wanted Charlottesville No. 2. We knew we wanted to be properly staffed, and we were.”
Craig said that his officers also worked to keep left-wing counter-demonstrators away from the Nazis.
“The one group [the Nazis] was armed,” Craig said. “We didn’t want the opposing group to assault them and respond in a way that would be violent.”
Craig also rebutted criticism that his department was “escorting” the neo-Nazis as they yelled out derogatory comments about the parade participants.
“To any critics that say we were escorting people in the National Socialist movement, we were keeping the two groups separate,” Craig said. “At one point, we escorted them to keep the opposing side away.”
Database Uncovers Facebook Posts Exposing Pattern of Racism Among Phoenix Cops, Including Thanking George Zimmerman for Killing Trayvon Martin
By ABS Contributor - Atlanta Black Star
June 7, 2019
A grassroots database has collected hundreds of social media posts that expose the apparent pattern of racism among Phoenix, Arizona, police officers.
The Plain View Project was launched in fall 2017, but the posts it has collected pertaining to cops in the capital city of Arizona are making waves after a writeup from the nonprofit newsroom Injustice Watch in collaboration with BuzzFeed News. PVP exposes racist imagery and memes espoused by many current and highly paid Phoenix police officers. The officer’s pay can be found on the city portal.
One post from Phoenix police officer Joshua Ankert pats former Sanford, Florida, neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman on the back for shooting and killing unarmed teenager Trayvon Martinin 2012.
“CONGRATULATIONS GEORGE ZIMMERMAN!!! Thank you for cleaning up our community one thug at a time,” he wrote in response to Zimmerman being acquitted of murdering the 17-year-old
Another post made by officer David Pallas in June 2016 was a meme he shared of former first lady Michelle Obama saying, “Every day I wake up in a house that was built by slaves.” Below it, a photo of late actor John Wayne, who has made headlines for his racist comments, was included. It read, “Then get out!! And take your gay Muslim husband with you.”
Obama’s husband, former President Barack Obama, was also not spared. He was included in a meme with Looney Tunes character Elmer Fudd shooting his head off after he tells the fictional character, “I’m here for your gun!”
“You want my gun, Barack? Here you go!” it was captioned.
Reuben Carver III, who has been on the force since 2002, said in a March 2011 Facebook post “It’s a good day for a chokehold.”
Other posts see cops commenting and referring to Black people as “thugs.” Charles Kirkland, a current police officer on the force, shared a link in June 2016 espousing the importance of Black fathers being in the home, indicating their absence is a bigger threat to the community than racism.
Such bigotry is not limited to Phoenix. Plain View Project has compiled similar lists for several cities, including Dallas, St. Louis, and Philadelphia, to name a few.
In response to the Arizona database, local police union president Mike “Britt” London issued a statement to the Arizona Republic defending the officers.
“People — including cops — say things they regret or that are unfortunate,” London said in a statement, calling Injustice Watch an “anti-police organization.” “But to judge an entire police department by a few social-media posts is doing a grave disservice to the nearly 3,000 sworn officers who work the front lines in Phoenix every day.”
After the department was contacted about Carver during the Injustice Watch/BuzzFeed research process, Phoenix Sgt. Vince Lewis said the force “is aware of the remaining report now available to us online and will be looking into other potential misconduct by current employees,” the Arizona Republic reported.
Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams, who is Black, issued a statement to various local outlets in response to the exposed posts Monday, June 3.
“I became aware of the entire website today which alleges misconduct by current and former Phoenix Police officers. The language and terminology used in the posts are embarrassing and disturbing. They completely contradict how the Phoenix Police Department should speak about the members of our community or others,” Williams said.
“Nor are these posts in keeping with our mission and values as city of Phoenix employee,”. she continued. “I have high expectations for the men and women who work with me. When potential misconduct is brought to my attention, it is immediately addressed. I have asked our Professional Standards Bureau to look further into this matter.”
The Plain View Project was launched in fall 2017, but the posts it has collected pertaining to cops in the capital city of Arizona are making waves after a writeup from the nonprofit newsroom Injustice Watch in collaboration with BuzzFeed News. PVP exposes racist imagery and memes espoused by many current and highly paid Phoenix police officers. The officer’s pay can be found on the city portal.
One post from Phoenix police officer Joshua Ankert pats former Sanford, Florida, neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman on the back for shooting and killing unarmed teenager Trayvon Martinin 2012.
“CONGRATULATIONS GEORGE ZIMMERMAN!!! Thank you for cleaning up our community one thug at a time,” he wrote in response to Zimmerman being acquitted of murdering the 17-year-old
Another post made by officer David Pallas in June 2016 was a meme he shared of former first lady Michelle Obama saying, “Every day I wake up in a house that was built by slaves.” Below it, a photo of late actor John Wayne, who has made headlines for his racist comments, was included. It read, “Then get out!! And take your gay Muslim husband with you.”
Obama’s husband, former President Barack Obama, was also not spared. He was included in a meme with Looney Tunes character Elmer Fudd shooting his head off after he tells the fictional character, “I’m here for your gun!”
“You want my gun, Barack? Here you go!” it was captioned.
Reuben Carver III, who has been on the force since 2002, said in a March 2011 Facebook post “It’s a good day for a chokehold.”
Other posts see cops commenting and referring to Black people as “thugs.” Charles Kirkland, a current police officer on the force, shared a link in June 2016 espousing the importance of Black fathers being in the home, indicating their absence is a bigger threat to the community than racism.
Such bigotry is not limited to Phoenix. Plain View Project has compiled similar lists for several cities, including Dallas, St. Louis, and Philadelphia, to name a few.
In response to the Arizona database, local police union president Mike “Britt” London issued a statement to the Arizona Republic defending the officers.
“People — including cops — say things they regret or that are unfortunate,” London said in a statement, calling Injustice Watch an “anti-police organization.” “But to judge an entire police department by a few social-media posts is doing a grave disservice to the nearly 3,000 sworn officers who work the front lines in Phoenix every day.”
After the department was contacted about Carver during the Injustice Watch/BuzzFeed research process, Phoenix Sgt. Vince Lewis said the force “is aware of the remaining report now available to us online and will be looking into other potential misconduct by current employees,” the Arizona Republic reported.
Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams, who is Black, issued a statement to various local outlets in response to the exposed posts Monday, June 3.
“I became aware of the entire website today which alleges misconduct by current and former Phoenix Police officers. The language and terminology used in the posts are embarrassing and disturbing. They completely contradict how the Phoenix Police Department should speak about the members of our community or others,” Williams said.
“Nor are these posts in keeping with our mission and values as city of Phoenix employee,”. she continued. “I have high expectations for the men and women who work with me. When potential misconduct is brought to my attention, it is immediately addressed. I have asked our Professional Standards Bureau to look further into this matter.”
The racist roots of American policing: From slave patrols to traffic stops
June 4, 2019
By The Conversation - Raw Story
Outrage over racial profiling and the killing of African Americans by police officers and vigilantes in recent years helped give rise to the Black Lives Matter movement.
But tensions between the police and black communities are nothing new.
There are many precedents to the Ferguson, Missouri protests that ushered in the Black Lives Matter movement. Those protests erupted in 2014 after a police officer shot unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown; the officer was subsequently not indicted.
The precedents include the Los Angeles riots that broke out after the 1992 acquittal of police officers for beating Rodney King. Those riots happened nearly three decades after the 1965 Watts riots, which began with Marquette Frye, an African American, being pulled over for suspected drunk driving and roughed up by the police for resisting arrest.
I’m a criminal justice researcher who often focuses on issues of race, class and crime. Through my research and from teaching a course on diversity in criminal justice, I have come to see how the roots of racism in American policing – first planted centuries ago – have not yet been fully purged.
Slave patrols
There are two historical narratives about the origins of American law enforcement.
Policing in southern slave-holding states had roots in slave patrols, squadrons made up of white volunteers empowered to use vigilante tactics to enforce laws related to slavery. They located and returned enslaved people who had escaped, crushed uprisings led by enslaved people and punished enslaved workers found or believed to have violated plantation rules.
The first slave patrols arose in South Carolina in the early 1700s. As University of Georgia social work professor Michael A. Robinson has written, by the time John Adams became the second U.S. president, every state that had not yet abolished slavery had them.
Members of slave patrols could forcefully enter anyone’s home, regardless of their race or ethnicity, based on suspicions that they were sheltering people who had escaped bondage.
The more commonly known precursors to modern law enforcement were centralized municipal police departments that began to form in the early 19th century, beginning in Boston and soon cropping up in New York City, Albany, Chicago, Philadelphia and elsewhere.
The first police forces were overwhelmingly white, male and more focused on responding to disorder than crime.
As Eastern Kentucky University criminologist Gary Potter explains, officers were expected to control a “dangerous underclass” that included African Americans, immigrants and the poor. Through the early 20th century, there were few standards for hiring or training officers.
Police corruption and violence – particularly against vulnerable people – were commonplace during the early 1900s. Additionally, the few African Americans who joined police forces were often assigned to black neighborhoods and faced discrimination on the job. In my opinion, these factors – controlling disorder, lack of adequate police training, lack of nonwhite officers and slave patrol origins – are among the forerunners of modern-day police brutality against African Americans.
Jim Crow laws
Slave patrols formally dissolved after the Civil War ended. But formerly enslaved people saw little relief from racist government policies as they promptly became subject to Black Codes.
For the next three years, these new laws specified how, when and where African Americans could work and how much they would be paid. They also restricted black voting rights, dictated how and where African Americans could travel and limited where they could live.
The ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 quickly made the Black Codes illegal by giving formerly enslaved blacks equal protection of laws through the Constitution. But within two decades, Jim Crow laws aimed at subjugating African Americans and denying their civil rights were enacted across southern and some northern states, replacing the Black Codes.
For about 80 years, Jim Crow laws mandated separate public spacesfor blacks and whites, such as schools, libraries, water fountains and restaurants – and enforcing them was part of the police’s job. Blacks who broke laws or violated social norms often endured police brutality.
Meanwhile, the authorities didn’t punish the perpetrators when African Americans were lynched. Nor did the judicial system hold the police accountable for failing to intervene when black people were being murdered by mobs.
Reverberating today
For the past five decades, the federal government has forbidden the use of racist regulations at the state and local level. Yet people of color are still more likely to be killed by the police than whites.
The Washington Post tracks the number of Americans killed by the police by race, gender and other characteristics. The newspaper’s database indicates that 229 out of 992 of those who died that way in 2018, 23% of the total, were black, even though only about 12% of the country is African American.
Policing’s institutional racism of decades and centuries ago still matters because policing culture has not changed as much as it could. For many African Americans, law enforcement represents a legacy of reinforced inequality in the justice system and resistance to advancement – even under pressure from the civil rights movement and its legacy.
In addition, the police disproportionately target black drivers.
When a Stanford University research team analyzed data collected between 2011 and 2017 from nearly 100 million traffic stops to look for evidence of systemic racial profiling, they found that black drivers were more likely to be pulled over and to have their cars searched than white drivers. They also found that the percentage of black drivers being stopped by police dropped after dark when a driver’s complexion is harder to see from outside the vehicle.
This persistent disparity in policing is disappointing because of progress in other regards.
There is greater understanding within the police that brutality, particularly lethal force, leads to public mistrust, and police forces are becoming more diverse.
What’s more, college students majoring in criminal justice who plan to become future law enforcement officers now frequently take “diversity in criminal justice” courses. This relatively new curriculum is designed to, among other things, make future police professionals more aware of their own biases and those of others. In my view, what these students learn in these classes will make them more attuned to the communities they serve once they enter the workforce.
In addition, law enforcement officers and leaders are being trained to recognize and minimize their own biases in New York City and other places where people of color are disproportionately stopped by the authorities and arrested.
But the persistence of racially biased policing means that unless American policing reckons with its racist roots, it is likely to keep repeating mistakes of the past. This will hinder police from fully protecting and serving the entire public.
But tensions between the police and black communities are nothing new.
There are many precedents to the Ferguson, Missouri protests that ushered in the Black Lives Matter movement. Those protests erupted in 2014 after a police officer shot unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown; the officer was subsequently not indicted.
The precedents include the Los Angeles riots that broke out after the 1992 acquittal of police officers for beating Rodney King. Those riots happened nearly three decades after the 1965 Watts riots, which began with Marquette Frye, an African American, being pulled over for suspected drunk driving and roughed up by the police for resisting arrest.
I’m a criminal justice researcher who often focuses on issues of race, class and crime. Through my research and from teaching a course on diversity in criminal justice, I have come to see how the roots of racism in American policing – first planted centuries ago – have not yet been fully purged.
Slave patrols
There are two historical narratives about the origins of American law enforcement.
Policing in southern slave-holding states had roots in slave patrols, squadrons made up of white volunteers empowered to use vigilante tactics to enforce laws related to slavery. They located and returned enslaved people who had escaped, crushed uprisings led by enslaved people and punished enslaved workers found or believed to have violated plantation rules.
The first slave patrols arose in South Carolina in the early 1700s. As University of Georgia social work professor Michael A. Robinson has written, by the time John Adams became the second U.S. president, every state that had not yet abolished slavery had them.
Members of slave patrols could forcefully enter anyone’s home, regardless of their race or ethnicity, based on suspicions that they were sheltering people who had escaped bondage.
The more commonly known precursors to modern law enforcement were centralized municipal police departments that began to form in the early 19th century, beginning in Boston and soon cropping up in New York City, Albany, Chicago, Philadelphia and elsewhere.
The first police forces were overwhelmingly white, male and more focused on responding to disorder than crime.
As Eastern Kentucky University criminologist Gary Potter explains, officers were expected to control a “dangerous underclass” that included African Americans, immigrants and the poor. Through the early 20th century, there were few standards for hiring or training officers.
Police corruption and violence – particularly against vulnerable people – were commonplace during the early 1900s. Additionally, the few African Americans who joined police forces were often assigned to black neighborhoods and faced discrimination on the job. In my opinion, these factors – controlling disorder, lack of adequate police training, lack of nonwhite officers and slave patrol origins – are among the forerunners of modern-day police brutality against African Americans.
Jim Crow laws
Slave patrols formally dissolved after the Civil War ended. But formerly enslaved people saw little relief from racist government policies as they promptly became subject to Black Codes.
For the next three years, these new laws specified how, when and where African Americans could work and how much they would be paid. They also restricted black voting rights, dictated how and where African Americans could travel and limited where they could live.
The ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 quickly made the Black Codes illegal by giving formerly enslaved blacks equal protection of laws through the Constitution. But within two decades, Jim Crow laws aimed at subjugating African Americans and denying their civil rights were enacted across southern and some northern states, replacing the Black Codes.
For about 80 years, Jim Crow laws mandated separate public spacesfor blacks and whites, such as schools, libraries, water fountains and restaurants – and enforcing them was part of the police’s job. Blacks who broke laws or violated social norms often endured police brutality.
Meanwhile, the authorities didn’t punish the perpetrators when African Americans were lynched. Nor did the judicial system hold the police accountable for failing to intervene when black people were being murdered by mobs.
Reverberating today
For the past five decades, the federal government has forbidden the use of racist regulations at the state and local level. Yet people of color are still more likely to be killed by the police than whites.
The Washington Post tracks the number of Americans killed by the police by race, gender and other characteristics. The newspaper’s database indicates that 229 out of 992 of those who died that way in 2018, 23% of the total, were black, even though only about 12% of the country is African American.
Policing’s institutional racism of decades and centuries ago still matters because policing culture has not changed as much as it could. For many African Americans, law enforcement represents a legacy of reinforced inequality in the justice system and resistance to advancement – even under pressure from the civil rights movement and its legacy.
In addition, the police disproportionately target black drivers.
When a Stanford University research team analyzed data collected between 2011 and 2017 from nearly 100 million traffic stops to look for evidence of systemic racial profiling, they found that black drivers were more likely to be pulled over and to have their cars searched than white drivers. They also found that the percentage of black drivers being stopped by police dropped after dark when a driver’s complexion is harder to see from outside the vehicle.
This persistent disparity in policing is disappointing because of progress in other regards.
There is greater understanding within the police that brutality, particularly lethal force, leads to public mistrust, and police forces are becoming more diverse.
What’s more, college students majoring in criminal justice who plan to become future law enforcement officers now frequently take “diversity in criminal justice” courses. This relatively new curriculum is designed to, among other things, make future police professionals more aware of their own biases and those of others. In my view, what these students learn in these classes will make them more attuned to the communities they serve once they enter the workforce.
In addition, law enforcement officers and leaders are being trained to recognize and minimize their own biases in New York City and other places where people of color are disproportionately stopped by the authorities and arrested.
But the persistence of racially biased policing means that unless American policing reckons with its racist roots, it is likely to keep repeating mistakes of the past. This will hinder police from fully protecting and serving the entire public.
Georgia Cop Who Initially Got Away with Brutally Beating Homeless Woman Now Faces Felony Charges, Thanks to Video Footage
By Tanasia Kenney - atlanta black star
May 31, 2019
A Georgia cop initially cleared in the brutal assault of a Black homeless woman inside an Atlanta-area convenience store has been indicted on felony charges.
On Thursday, the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office announced charges against 29-year-old officer Phillip Larscheid, who was caught on video repeatedly striking Katie McCrary with his baton during a June 2017 incident. A grand jury voted to indict Larscheid on aggravated assault and violation of oath charges — both of which are felonies.
Footage from the incident forced prosecutors to reopen the use–of–force case involving the DeKalb County officer and was then turned over to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for review.
Prosecutors said Larscheid, 29, was responding to loitering and shoplifting complaint at a Chevron gas station in the Atlanta suburb of Decatur when the chaos unfolded. He encountered McCrary, who was standing near the door, and told her step outside so that he could talk with her. That’s when authorities said McCrary pushed the officer away and tried to leave.
The woman allegedly told Larscheid she was a federal agent and read off a fake badge number, to which the officer warned that she could be arrested for impersonating an officer. McCrary, 38, shot back and accused Larscheid of impersonating an officer before reaching for his badge.
That’s when all hell broke loose.
“Words were exchanged between the officer and McCrary, with McCrary subsequently assaulting the officer,” according to the police report. “She continued [to] aggressively resist the officer’s commands, resulting in the deployment of the officer’s baton.”
In video of the incident, Larscheid is seen hitting the homeless woman with his baton multiple times as he struggles to place her under arrest. He repeatedly orders McCray to “put your hands behind your back,” but she refuses, and at one point rolls on her back to deliver a few kicks to the officer.
“Get on your stomach!” the officer shouts before whaling on McCrary with the baton once again. Bystanders in the background are heard urging the woman to “stop resisting.”
McCrary eventually complies, but that didn’t stop Larscheid from striking her a few more times. The assault left McCrary with several contusions to her body and a laceration on her shin. She was even hit in the head.
An initial review on the incident found the officer’s use of force was “justified,” and he was cleared of wrongdoing. The investigation was relaunched, however, after clips of the commotion began circulating on social media.
After its review, the GBI turned over its findings to the DeKalb DA’s office.
“We determined that the case warranted proprietorial action and presented the case today to the grand jury for one count of aggravated assault and one count of violation of oath of office, both felony charges,” DeKalb district attorney Sherry Boston said.
Police charged McCray with obstructing or hindering law enforcement officers in the incident. Prosecutors said they are no longer pursuing charges against her.
A warrant has been issued for Larscheid’s arrest, Boston said, and the officer has until 5 p.m. Saturday to turn himself into police.
Lance LoRusso, a lawyer for Larscheid, said his client is currently “considering his options going forward.”
“He was Officer of the Year for 2014 for the entire Dekalb County Police Department and has received more than nineteen commendations during his eight years with the department,” LoRusso said in a statement provided to WSB-TV. “He certified with an ASP baton in the Dekalb Police Academy and seven times after that during annual training. He is understandably deeply concerned and taking these charges very seriously.”
The county confirmed Thursday that Larscheid is still employed by the Dekalb County Police Department and has remained on desk duty since July 2017.
On Thursday, the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office announced charges against 29-year-old officer Phillip Larscheid, who was caught on video repeatedly striking Katie McCrary with his baton during a June 2017 incident. A grand jury voted to indict Larscheid on aggravated assault and violation of oath charges — both of which are felonies.
Footage from the incident forced prosecutors to reopen the use–of–force case involving the DeKalb County officer and was then turned over to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for review.
Prosecutors said Larscheid, 29, was responding to loitering and shoplifting complaint at a Chevron gas station in the Atlanta suburb of Decatur when the chaos unfolded. He encountered McCrary, who was standing near the door, and told her step outside so that he could talk with her. That’s when authorities said McCrary pushed the officer away and tried to leave.
The woman allegedly told Larscheid she was a federal agent and read off a fake badge number, to which the officer warned that she could be arrested for impersonating an officer. McCrary, 38, shot back and accused Larscheid of impersonating an officer before reaching for his badge.
That’s when all hell broke loose.
“Words were exchanged between the officer and McCrary, with McCrary subsequently assaulting the officer,” according to the police report. “She continued [to] aggressively resist the officer’s commands, resulting in the deployment of the officer’s baton.”
In video of the incident, Larscheid is seen hitting the homeless woman with his baton multiple times as he struggles to place her under arrest. He repeatedly orders McCray to “put your hands behind your back,” but she refuses, and at one point rolls on her back to deliver a few kicks to the officer.
“Get on your stomach!” the officer shouts before whaling on McCrary with the baton once again. Bystanders in the background are heard urging the woman to “stop resisting.”
McCrary eventually complies, but that didn’t stop Larscheid from striking her a few more times. The assault left McCrary with several contusions to her body and a laceration on her shin. She was even hit in the head.
An initial review on the incident found the officer’s use of force was “justified,” and he was cleared of wrongdoing. The investigation was relaunched, however, after clips of the commotion began circulating on social media.
After its review, the GBI turned over its findings to the DeKalb DA’s office.
“We determined that the case warranted proprietorial action and presented the case today to the grand jury for one count of aggravated assault and one count of violation of oath of office, both felony charges,” DeKalb district attorney Sherry Boston said.
Police charged McCray with obstructing or hindering law enforcement officers in the incident. Prosecutors said they are no longer pursuing charges against her.
A warrant has been issued for Larscheid’s arrest, Boston said, and the officer has until 5 p.m. Saturday to turn himself into police.
Lance LoRusso, a lawyer for Larscheid, said his client is currently “considering his options going forward.”
“He was Officer of the Year for 2014 for the entire Dekalb County Police Department and has received more than nineteen commendations during his eight years with the department,” LoRusso said in a statement provided to WSB-TV. “He certified with an ASP baton in the Dekalb Police Academy and seven times after that during annual training. He is understandably deeply concerned and taking these charges very seriously.”
The county confirmed Thursday that Larscheid is still employed by the Dekalb County Police Department and has remained on desk duty since July 2017.
Oklahoma cop claims black man has a gun — until he realizes he is being filmed: ‘He trying to shoot me’
By David Edwards - raw story
May 27, 2019
A Oklahoma police officer has been accused of wrongly pulling his firearm on an unarmed man.
Edrick Truitt told WREQ that the incident occurred early Sunday morning Double Quick store. Truitt said that he was meeting family when another car pulled in front of him.
“As we were leaving out, a car jumped in front of me, so I hit my brakes to let them go by,” Truitt explained.
Cell phone video shows an officer pulling a gun on Truitt and ordering to turn off the car. But when Truitt moves his hands, the officer shouts to the other officers, “He’s got a gun.”
“Where?” Truitt shouts back.
“Shut the car off!” the officer demands.
“My hands are in the air,” Truitt explains. “I ain’t moving my hands. He trying to shoot me.”
Eventually, the officer holsters his sidearm and forcibly removes Truitt from the vehicle.
“He was like, ‘That’s a failure to comply,’ but if I would have complied, I would have got killed,” Truitt pointed out to WREQ.
Although police later found a gun in Truitt’s car, he said it was out of his reach.
“What I did saved my life,” Truitt insisted. “That’s why I’m here talking to y’all. If not, y’all would be covering a story about how I got shot.”
Truitt was arrested and charged with failing to obey a lawful order.
Helena-West Helena Police said that the officer’s body camera footage is being reviewed. The officer has reportedly received threats following the incident.
Edrick Truitt told WREQ that the incident occurred early Sunday morning Double Quick store. Truitt said that he was meeting family when another car pulled in front of him.
“As we were leaving out, a car jumped in front of me, so I hit my brakes to let them go by,” Truitt explained.
Cell phone video shows an officer pulling a gun on Truitt and ordering to turn off the car. But when Truitt moves his hands, the officer shouts to the other officers, “He’s got a gun.”
“Where?” Truitt shouts back.
“Shut the car off!” the officer demands.
“My hands are in the air,” Truitt explains. “I ain’t moving my hands. He trying to shoot me.”
Eventually, the officer holsters his sidearm and forcibly removes Truitt from the vehicle.
“He was like, ‘That’s a failure to comply,’ but if I would have complied, I would have got killed,” Truitt pointed out to WREQ.
Although police later found a gun in Truitt’s car, he said it was out of his reach.
“What I did saved my life,” Truitt insisted. “That’s why I’m here talking to y’all. If not, y’all would be covering a story about how I got shot.”
Truitt was arrested and charged with failing to obey a lawful order.
Helena-West Helena Police said that the officer’s body camera footage is being reviewed. The officer has reportedly received threats following the incident.
N.Y. Police Commander Said Eric Garner’s Death ‘Wasn’t a Big Deal,’ New Texts Reveal
By Tanasia Kenney - atlanta black star
May 19, 2019
The Staten Island police commander who oversaw the events that led to the tragic death of Eric Garnerin 2014 texted an officer that the death was “no big deal,” according to a New York Times report.
The texts between commander Lt. Christopher Bannon and Sgt. Dhanan Saminath were revealed for the first time Thursday during the disciplinary hearing for accused officer Daniel Pantaleo, who faces termination for his reckless use of a chokehold that lead to Garner’s death.
Pantaleo arrested the Staten Island man in July 2014 on suspicion that he was selling loose, untaxed cigarettes on the street. The incident, caught on video, showed the officer take Garner, 44, to the ground and place him in the department-banned maneuver.
Garner’s last words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement and their fight against police brutality.
On July 17, 2014, Bannon received a text message from Saminath alerting him to the arrest gone wrong. The sergeant told Bannon that the suspect, later identified as Garner, had been wrestled to the ground.
“When they took him down, Eric went into cardiac arrest. He’s likely DOA (dead on arrival),” Saminath texted, adding that Garner didn’t have a pulse.
“Not a big deal,” the lieutenant wrote back. “We were effecting a lawful arrest.”
The New York Times reported that the texts drew gasps from the courtroom as they were read aloud.
Garner, a father-of-six suffered a heart attack in the incident and later died. An autopsy by the city’s medical examiner determined that the choke hold, along with Garner’s poor health — asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes — had contributed to his death. That same medical examiner took the stand Thursday and testified that the banned maneuver “set into motion a lethal sequence” that led to Garner’s demise.
A grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo on criminal charges in the incident in 2014, sparking nights of protest across the city. A civil rights inquiry was launched, but charges have yet to be filed. The statute of limitations expires in July, on the five year anniversary of Garner’s arrest.
The city awarded Garner’s family a $5.9 million wrongful death settlement in 2015.
In trying to explain the damning texts, Bannon insisted he meant no harm by what he said.
“My reasoning,’’ the lieutenant said, “was not to be malicious. It’s to make sure the officer knew he was put in a bad situation.”
Prosecutor Suzanne O’Hare pressed Bannon on the issue, asking: “Would you agree that Eric Garner was put in a bad situation?”
“I don’t know how to answer that,” he replied after a long pause.
Bannon’s explanation only angered Gwen Carr, Garner’s mother.
“No big deal?” Carr angrily told reporters after the hearing in Lower Manhattan. “If one of his loved ones was on the ground dead and someone came up to him and said, ‘It’s no big deal,’ how would you feel about it?”
Thursdays’s hearing also focused on low-level “quality of life” policing that officers were conducting in the weeks before Garner’s death, according to the Times. This enforcement, better known as “broken windows policing,” tends to target Blacks and other racial minorities. Police said Garner had been arrested twice during that crackdown, the third on the day he died.
“The arrest of Eric Garner was the result of a chain of decisions originating at the very highest levels of the N.Y.P.D.,” Patrick J. Lynch, the president of the Police Benevolent Association, told reporters after the hearing. “Police officers who enforce quality of life offenses are not cowboys or free agents — they follow the direction of their supervisors, who are in turn responding to complaints from the community.”
Pantaleo’s supervisors also took the stand and described the accused cop as an outstanding officer.
“On a scale of 0 to 5, he was a 5.0,” Bannon told the court. “Officer Pantaleo was one of the best officers I’ve supervised.’’
Pantaleo faces NYPD administrative charges of reckless use of force and strangulation. If found guilty, he could face punishment ranging from the loss of vacation days to termination.
The texts between commander Lt. Christopher Bannon and Sgt. Dhanan Saminath were revealed for the first time Thursday during the disciplinary hearing for accused officer Daniel Pantaleo, who faces termination for his reckless use of a chokehold that lead to Garner’s death.
Pantaleo arrested the Staten Island man in July 2014 on suspicion that he was selling loose, untaxed cigarettes on the street. The incident, caught on video, showed the officer take Garner, 44, to the ground and place him in the department-banned maneuver.
Garner’s last words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement and their fight against police brutality.
On July 17, 2014, Bannon received a text message from Saminath alerting him to the arrest gone wrong. The sergeant told Bannon that the suspect, later identified as Garner, had been wrestled to the ground.
“When they took him down, Eric went into cardiac arrest. He’s likely DOA (dead on arrival),” Saminath texted, adding that Garner didn’t have a pulse.
“Not a big deal,” the lieutenant wrote back. “We were effecting a lawful arrest.”
The New York Times reported that the texts drew gasps from the courtroom as they were read aloud.
Garner, a father-of-six suffered a heart attack in the incident and later died. An autopsy by the city’s medical examiner determined that the choke hold, along with Garner’s poor health — asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes — had contributed to his death. That same medical examiner took the stand Thursday and testified that the banned maneuver “set into motion a lethal sequence” that led to Garner’s demise.
A grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo on criminal charges in the incident in 2014, sparking nights of protest across the city. A civil rights inquiry was launched, but charges have yet to be filed. The statute of limitations expires in July, on the five year anniversary of Garner’s arrest.
The city awarded Garner’s family a $5.9 million wrongful death settlement in 2015.
In trying to explain the damning texts, Bannon insisted he meant no harm by what he said.
“My reasoning,’’ the lieutenant said, “was not to be malicious. It’s to make sure the officer knew he was put in a bad situation.”
Prosecutor Suzanne O’Hare pressed Bannon on the issue, asking: “Would you agree that Eric Garner was put in a bad situation?”
“I don’t know how to answer that,” he replied after a long pause.
Bannon’s explanation only angered Gwen Carr, Garner’s mother.
“No big deal?” Carr angrily told reporters after the hearing in Lower Manhattan. “If one of his loved ones was on the ground dead and someone came up to him and said, ‘It’s no big deal,’ how would you feel about it?”
Thursdays’s hearing also focused on low-level “quality of life” policing that officers were conducting in the weeks before Garner’s death, according to the Times. This enforcement, better known as “broken windows policing,” tends to target Blacks and other racial minorities. Police said Garner had been arrested twice during that crackdown, the third on the day he died.
“The arrest of Eric Garner was the result of a chain of decisions originating at the very highest levels of the N.Y.P.D.,” Patrick J. Lynch, the president of the Police Benevolent Association, told reporters after the hearing. “Police officers who enforce quality of life offenses are not cowboys or free agents — they follow the direction of their supervisors, who are in turn responding to complaints from the community.”
Pantaleo’s supervisors also took the stand and described the accused cop as an outstanding officer.
“On a scale of 0 to 5, he was a 5.0,” Bannon told the court. “Officer Pantaleo was one of the best officers I’ve supervised.’’
Pantaleo faces NYPD administrative charges of reckless use of force and strangulation. If found guilty, he could face punishment ranging from the loss of vacation days to termination.
jaywalking while black!!!
Black teen traumatized after cop slams him into patrol car and handcuffs him during jaywalking stop
Travis Gettys - raw story
17 MAY 2019 AT 14:21 ET
A black Florida father says police “traumatized” his teenage son by roughing him up and accusing him of carrying drugs during a jaywalking stop.
Chico Powell explained in a Facebook post that his 16-year-old son was walking home late Monday from work at a Publix grocery in Clearwater when he crossed a road outside the crosswalk, and an officer turned on his lights and chirped the siren to get the boy’s attention, reported the Tampa Bay Times.
The teenager, who was wearing a hoodie over his green work apron, took an earbud out and asked the officer what he wanted, and Officer Joshua Gibson said he should use the crosswalk.
The teen agreed, and the officer asked if he was trying to get away or if he was carrying anything he shouldn’t have.
Gibson told the teen to approach his cruiser, but the boy backed away — and then the officer grabbed him.
The teen “braced, tensed and pulled away,” Gibson wrote in his report, “in an attempt to defeat my grasp.”
The officer pushed the boy against his cruiser, called for backup and placed the teenager in handcuffs.
Gibson again asked why the boy was trying to get away and whether he was carrying anything illegal, and the teen said no and consented to a search.
The officer found nothing illegal, and then told the teenager that disobeying law enforcement could be considered resisting arrest without violence — and that’s when the boy started crying.
He told the officer he understood and apologized several times, according to Gibson’s report, and he asked the officer to call his mother and explain what happened.
Gibson ultimately did not cite or arrest the boy because he was cooperative, and he gave him a verbal warning.
Powell, the boy’s father, said the situation should never have escalated beyond the initial warning about jaywalking.
“No matter how good we try to live our lives y’all only gone see us as one thing,” Powell said. “But guess what, y’all gotta another thing coming (because) he got a dad that cares and we’ll see y’all in court.”
The video was shared thousands of times on Facebook, which is where Clearwater police chief Dan Slaughter first learned of the incident.
He said police had spoken to Powell and opened an investigation.
“I think people know this department well enough that we wouldn’t tolerate making stops based on race,” Slaughter said. “But we’re going to look into the circumstances.”
Chico Powell explained in a Facebook post that his 16-year-old son was walking home late Monday from work at a Publix grocery in Clearwater when he crossed a road outside the crosswalk, and an officer turned on his lights and chirped the siren to get the boy’s attention, reported the Tampa Bay Times.
The teenager, who was wearing a hoodie over his green work apron, took an earbud out and asked the officer what he wanted, and Officer Joshua Gibson said he should use the crosswalk.
The teen agreed, and the officer asked if he was trying to get away or if he was carrying anything he shouldn’t have.
Gibson told the teen to approach his cruiser, but the boy backed away — and then the officer grabbed him.
The teen “braced, tensed and pulled away,” Gibson wrote in his report, “in an attempt to defeat my grasp.”
The officer pushed the boy against his cruiser, called for backup and placed the teenager in handcuffs.
Gibson again asked why the boy was trying to get away and whether he was carrying anything illegal, and the teen said no and consented to a search.
The officer found nothing illegal, and then told the teenager that disobeying law enforcement could be considered resisting arrest without violence — and that’s when the boy started crying.
He told the officer he understood and apologized several times, according to Gibson’s report, and he asked the officer to call his mother and explain what happened.
Gibson ultimately did not cite or arrest the boy because he was cooperative, and he gave him a verbal warning.
Powell, the boy’s father, said the situation should never have escalated beyond the initial warning about jaywalking.
“No matter how good we try to live our lives y’all only gone see us as one thing,” Powell said. “But guess what, y’all gotta another thing coming (because) he got a dad that cares and we’ll see y’all in court.”
The video was shared thousands of times on Facebook, which is where Clearwater police chief Dan Slaughter first learned of the incident.
He said police had spoken to Powell and opened an investigation.
“I think people know this department well enough that we wouldn’t tolerate making stops based on race,” Slaughter said. “But we’re going to look into the circumstances.”
US Border Patrol Is the Most Brutal Militia of All
BY Nick Alexandrov, Truthout
PUBLISHED May 13, 2019
The militia group was hunting for border-crossers near the U.S.-Mexico boundary. Soon it encountered a group of migrants. Its members made them “take off their shoes and walk for half an hour in their socks,” then “lie face-down in the dirt for an hour.” The militia’s members stole the migrants’ food and fed it to their horses. They took the migrants’ sweaters, tossing them dirty blankets covered in cactus spines to use against the cold.
Actions like these have made the militia infamous. Human rights researchers log its many crimes. Legal organizations record thousands of its abuses. But the militia, defiant, is digging in.
“We are America’s frontline,” their manifesto reads. “We safeguard the American homeland at and beyond our borders. We protect the American people against terrorists and the instruments of terror.”
Its members dismiss detractors. One man, recently retired, said he was “completely positive” about the outfit, stressing that “they’re doing the best that they can,” especially given some politicians’ efforts to restrict militia activity. “I wish all those guys in Washington would spend just one day down here to see what the hell they’re talking about,” a long-serving member declared.
But charges against the group have accumulated in recent years. They range from legal violations to physical, psychological and sexual abuse.
Consider lawbreaking first. One member shot through the border fence into Nogales, killing a teen on Mexico’s side of the fence in 2012. The group’s present policy, according to the ACLU, is to detain migrants and then “brazenly violate their religious-freedom rights,” taking away Bibles and rosaries from Christian border-crossers. The ACLU also writesthat militia men “routinely ignore or misunderstand the limits of their legal authority,” because they “are stopping, interrogating, and searching Americans on an everyday basis with absolutely no suspicion of wrongdoing, and often in ways that our Constitution does not permit.”
Now turn to abuse. Many of the worst offenses come just after the militia has captured migrants trying to enter the U.S. One child remembers how militia men “awoke a group of migrants sleeping in the Arizona desert by yelling at and kicking them.” Another, aged 16, recalled how a man “threw him down and smashed his head into the ground with his boot.” One militia member drove his truck over a child, whose leg suffered “crushing damage” and “significant trauma.” Yet another boy was “lying on his back in a bush when an agent approached and tased him in the stomach.” Then the assailant “proceeded to physically assault him by standing on the child’s leg and pressing down with force; pushing the child; kneeing the child twice in the stomach; and kicking the child into a thorn bush, injuring the child’s neck.”
These events give just a glimpse of border violence. Other militia members, on distinct occasions, “stomped on a child,” “threw a child to the ground,” “punched a child’s head,” “hit a child’s head with a flashlight,” and “pulled a child to a standing position by his hair” before knocking him “to the ground, where the side of the child’s face hit a rock.” On a different occasion, one of the armed men “tased a child.” Another “ran over a 17-year-old” with his vehicle before beating the teen with his fists.
Then there are the sexual violations. For example, when “two teenage girls reported that they had been sexually assaulted” by a militia member, “who they said forced them to strip [and] fondled them.” Another woman was “bound with duct tape, raped and stabbed.” One militia man “viciously attacked [a teenage girl] and her mother, twisting their necks, slashing their wrists and leaving them, finally, to bleed.”
This torment continues after militia members lock up migrants in their immigrant jails. Central Americans detained in these buildings suffer physical and verbal assault, untenable sleeping conditions and unsanitary drinking water.
“We had to drink water from the toilet to keep hydrated,” one woman explained. Another woman, from Guatemala, “spent four nights in a freezer in Arizona.” An investigation found that detention jail supervisors “had harassed and assaulted children, including fondling and kissing minors, watching them as they showered, and raping them.”
Such is the militia’s record. Its name? Perhaps you guessed a vigilante group, like New Mexico’s United Constitutional Patriots, covered in a flood of recent stories after they held migrants in the desolate desert. But no. It is a different group described here, one whose range of outrages the Patriots could only dream to match. This group is the U.S. Border Patrol.
Actions like these have made the militia infamous. Human rights researchers log its many crimes. Legal organizations record thousands of its abuses. But the militia, defiant, is digging in.
“We are America’s frontline,” their manifesto reads. “We safeguard the American homeland at and beyond our borders. We protect the American people against terrorists and the instruments of terror.”
Its members dismiss detractors. One man, recently retired, said he was “completely positive” about the outfit, stressing that “they’re doing the best that they can,” especially given some politicians’ efforts to restrict militia activity. “I wish all those guys in Washington would spend just one day down here to see what the hell they’re talking about,” a long-serving member declared.
But charges against the group have accumulated in recent years. They range from legal violations to physical, psychological and sexual abuse.
Consider lawbreaking first. One member shot through the border fence into Nogales, killing a teen on Mexico’s side of the fence in 2012. The group’s present policy, according to the ACLU, is to detain migrants and then “brazenly violate their religious-freedom rights,” taking away Bibles and rosaries from Christian border-crossers. The ACLU also writesthat militia men “routinely ignore or misunderstand the limits of their legal authority,” because they “are stopping, interrogating, and searching Americans on an everyday basis with absolutely no suspicion of wrongdoing, and often in ways that our Constitution does not permit.”
Now turn to abuse. Many of the worst offenses come just after the militia has captured migrants trying to enter the U.S. One child remembers how militia men “awoke a group of migrants sleeping in the Arizona desert by yelling at and kicking them.” Another, aged 16, recalled how a man “threw him down and smashed his head into the ground with his boot.” One militia member drove his truck over a child, whose leg suffered “crushing damage” and “significant trauma.” Yet another boy was “lying on his back in a bush when an agent approached and tased him in the stomach.” Then the assailant “proceeded to physically assault him by standing on the child’s leg and pressing down with force; pushing the child; kneeing the child twice in the stomach; and kicking the child into a thorn bush, injuring the child’s neck.”
These events give just a glimpse of border violence. Other militia members, on distinct occasions, “stomped on a child,” “threw a child to the ground,” “punched a child’s head,” “hit a child’s head with a flashlight,” and “pulled a child to a standing position by his hair” before knocking him “to the ground, where the side of the child’s face hit a rock.” On a different occasion, one of the armed men “tased a child.” Another “ran over a 17-year-old” with his vehicle before beating the teen with his fists.
Then there are the sexual violations. For example, when “two teenage girls reported that they had been sexually assaulted” by a militia member, “who they said forced them to strip [and] fondled them.” Another woman was “bound with duct tape, raped and stabbed.” One militia man “viciously attacked [a teenage girl] and her mother, twisting their necks, slashing their wrists and leaving them, finally, to bleed.”
This torment continues after militia members lock up migrants in their immigrant jails. Central Americans detained in these buildings suffer physical and verbal assault, untenable sleeping conditions and unsanitary drinking water.
“We had to drink water from the toilet to keep hydrated,” one woman explained. Another woman, from Guatemala, “spent four nights in a freezer in Arizona.” An investigation found that detention jail supervisors “had harassed and assaulted children, including fondling and kissing minors, watching them as they showered, and raping them.”
Such is the militia’s record. Its name? Perhaps you guessed a vigilante group, like New Mexico’s United Constitutional Patriots, covered in a flood of recent stories after they held migrants in the desolate desert. But no. It is a different group described here, one whose range of outrages the Patriots could only dream to match. This group is the U.S. Border Patrol.
Crowded border forces ICE to transport immigrants by plane. Trump’s own policies helped cause this.
The Trump administration ended a pilot program in 2017 that kept immigrant families out of detention.
REBEKAH ENTRALGO - THINKPROGRESS
MAY 12, 2019, 10:18 AM
Space at certain Border Patrol stations has become so scarce that authorities have resorted to transporting immigrants on aircrafts to other parts of the U.S.-Mexico just to be processed.
As first reported by The Washington Post, the flights are conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The first flight left McAllen, Texas, on Friday for Del Rio, Texas. Daily flights are scheduled over the next few days.
It is not out of the ordinary for ICE to transport immigrants on a plane, as they frequently use flights as a way of transferring individuals from one detention center to another. What is new, however, is the practice of transporting recently-arrived immigrants via aircraft to different parts of the border so that they can go through a preliminary booking procedure.
Officials say this is necessary to accommodate the influx of immigrant families that have arrived at the border in record numbers over the last few months. In April, authorities detained 109,144 migrants along the southern border — the highest total since 2007. More than 60% of those apprehended were families or children.
But it hasn’t always been like this. The Trump administration ended vital programs and policies which helped alleviate the number of immigrants in detention.
Beginning in January 2016, ICE had a formal alternative to detention called the Family Case Management Program (FCMP). FCMP was specifically designed for families seeking protection in the United States and allowed families who passed a credible fear interview to be released into the country.
Families were also provided with a caseworker. The program was wildly successful; according to the Women’s Refugee Commission it resulted in a 99.3% rate of immigrants attending their court hearings and a 99.4% rate of attending appointments.
In addition to being successful, it was also cost-effective. Detaining families is expensive, costing upwards of $320 per day. FCMP meanwhile, costs just $38 per day per family unit. For a family of one parent and two children, 20 days enrolled in the FCMP costs $760, compared to $19,200 in an ICE family detention center.
Despite this, ICE chose to end FCMP because they believed it to be too expensive.
“The rates of compliance for FCMP were consistent with other monitoring options ICE exercises under Alternatives to Detention (ATD), which proved to be a much better use of limited resources,” ICE spokesperson Sarah Rodriguez told NBC News in a statement last summer.
President Donald Trump likely isn’t concerned with cost of detaining immigrants given he has routinely asked the federal government to contribute billions to his border wall and the expansion of detention centers.
He is concerned, however, with ending the process of “catch and release” which played a part in why the administration ended the program in June 2017. In the view of President Trump, “catch and release” programs like FCMP allow the government to detain criminal immigrants, then release them into the country where they avoid their court dates and ICE check-ins. All data points to the contrary, however, demonstrating that the vast majority of immigrants follow the rules when not detained.
Meanwhile, the continued increase in the number of immigrants in detention has allowed for the Trump administration to justify its expansion of privatized detention centers. Over the last few weeks the administration awarded three contracts to private prison companies. The three prisons have a combined capacity of nearly 5,000.
As first reported by The Washington Post, the flights are conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The first flight left McAllen, Texas, on Friday for Del Rio, Texas. Daily flights are scheduled over the next few days.
It is not out of the ordinary for ICE to transport immigrants on a plane, as they frequently use flights as a way of transferring individuals from one detention center to another. What is new, however, is the practice of transporting recently-arrived immigrants via aircraft to different parts of the border so that they can go through a preliminary booking procedure.
Officials say this is necessary to accommodate the influx of immigrant families that have arrived at the border in record numbers over the last few months. In April, authorities detained 109,144 migrants along the southern border — the highest total since 2007. More than 60% of those apprehended were families or children.
But it hasn’t always been like this. The Trump administration ended vital programs and policies which helped alleviate the number of immigrants in detention.
Beginning in January 2016, ICE had a formal alternative to detention called the Family Case Management Program (FCMP). FCMP was specifically designed for families seeking protection in the United States and allowed families who passed a credible fear interview to be released into the country.
Families were also provided with a caseworker. The program was wildly successful; according to the Women’s Refugee Commission it resulted in a 99.3% rate of immigrants attending their court hearings and a 99.4% rate of attending appointments.
In addition to being successful, it was also cost-effective. Detaining families is expensive, costing upwards of $320 per day. FCMP meanwhile, costs just $38 per day per family unit. For a family of one parent and two children, 20 days enrolled in the FCMP costs $760, compared to $19,200 in an ICE family detention center.
Despite this, ICE chose to end FCMP because they believed it to be too expensive.
“The rates of compliance for FCMP were consistent with other monitoring options ICE exercises under Alternatives to Detention (ATD), which proved to be a much better use of limited resources,” ICE spokesperson Sarah Rodriguez told NBC News in a statement last summer.
President Donald Trump likely isn’t concerned with cost of detaining immigrants given he has routinely asked the federal government to contribute billions to his border wall and the expansion of detention centers.
He is concerned, however, with ending the process of “catch and release” which played a part in why the administration ended the program in June 2017. In the view of President Trump, “catch and release” programs like FCMP allow the government to detain criminal immigrants, then release them into the country where they avoid their court dates and ICE check-ins. All data points to the contrary, however, demonstrating that the vast majority of immigrants follow the rules when not detained.
Meanwhile, the continued increase in the number of immigrants in detention has allowed for the Trump administration to justify its expansion of privatized detention centers. Over the last few weeks the administration awarded three contracts to private prison companies. The three prisons have a combined capacity of nearly 5,000.
Texas Cop Tries to Arrest Wrong Man on Out-of-State Warrant in his Front Yard
by Nathan Dimoff - newsmaven.io
5/9/19
A Texas constable spotted a black man with dreadlocks chilling on his front porch and determined he fit the description of another black man with dreadlocks wanted on an out-of-state warrant.
Clarence Evans was sitting outside with his son and daughter when a constable from Houston Precinct 4 pulled up in front of his house claiming that someone had reported his dog as stolen.
According to the caption of the video he posted on Facebook, Evans told the cop that his dog had both a chip and the proper paperwork proving he was the owner.
The officer asks for his identification but Evans refused to give it to him, which triggered the cop into wanting to arrest him.
According to the caption:
"He then asked for Id and I politely tell him no he then says to me “put your hands behind your back Reg” I have never in my life went by that name then he tells I have a felony warrant out in Louisiana and calls me Quitin."
Texas has a long-established law that states a person does not have to identify themselves unless they have been lawfully arrested.
The almost 5-minute video starts off with Evans speaking into the camera, saying the officer does not even know his name but has a warrant.
The officer responds that he has a warrant out of Louisiana. Evans asks how is that possible if he does not even live in Louisiana.
Fifty-seven seconds into the video, the officer calls Evans by the name Quinton.
"My name is not Quinton, what the fuck is wrong with you," Evans responds.
The woman behind the camera also tells the cop that is not his name.
"You walked up here and called me three different names. That is the third name you just, no," Evans tells the officer, a minute and five seconds into the video.
Evans continues by also telling the officer that he is "not going to be the next nigger you kill."
But the cop continues to insist that Evans is a wanted man out of Louisiana.
At 1:15 into the video, Evans demands to see the picture of the person the officer was trying to arrest and demands to see a supervisor but the cop attempts to shove him towards his car instead, claiming he is the supervisor.
"You in my yard, in my property, fuck that," Evans tells the cop, refusing to walk with him.
It's not until 3:15 into the video when a backup officer arrives and retrieves the first officer's phone from his car that the cop is finally able to show Evans the man he is looking for.
"That does not look like me, what the fuck is wrong with you man," Evans responds after seeing the photo. "What you trying to say because I am black and have dreads that's me?"
This is not the first time that Houston-area police botched their investigations with citizens this year.
In January, Houston officers killed two people in a raid based off of bad information without fully investigating.
In 2014, Houston Police were also caught illegally detaining a man and tried to delete the video.
(VIDEO)
Clarence Evans was sitting outside with his son and daughter when a constable from Houston Precinct 4 pulled up in front of his house claiming that someone had reported his dog as stolen.
According to the caption of the video he posted on Facebook, Evans told the cop that his dog had both a chip and the proper paperwork proving he was the owner.
The officer asks for his identification but Evans refused to give it to him, which triggered the cop into wanting to arrest him.
According to the caption:
"He then asked for Id and I politely tell him no he then says to me “put your hands behind your back Reg” I have never in my life went by that name then he tells I have a felony warrant out in Louisiana and calls me Quitin."
Texas has a long-established law that states a person does not have to identify themselves unless they have been lawfully arrested.
The almost 5-minute video starts off with Evans speaking into the camera, saying the officer does not even know his name but has a warrant.
The officer responds that he has a warrant out of Louisiana. Evans asks how is that possible if he does not even live in Louisiana.
Fifty-seven seconds into the video, the officer calls Evans by the name Quinton.
"My name is not Quinton, what the fuck is wrong with you," Evans responds.
The woman behind the camera also tells the cop that is not his name.
"You walked up here and called me three different names. That is the third name you just, no," Evans tells the officer, a minute and five seconds into the video.
Evans continues by also telling the officer that he is "not going to be the next nigger you kill."
But the cop continues to insist that Evans is a wanted man out of Louisiana.
At 1:15 into the video, Evans demands to see the picture of the person the officer was trying to arrest and demands to see a supervisor but the cop attempts to shove him towards his car instead, claiming he is the supervisor.
"You in my yard, in my property, fuck that," Evans tells the cop, refusing to walk with him.
It's not until 3:15 into the video when a backup officer arrives and retrieves the first officer's phone from his car that the cop is finally able to show Evans the man he is looking for.
"That does not look like me, what the fuck is wrong with you man," Evans responds after seeing the photo. "What you trying to say because I am black and have dreads that's me?"
This is not the first time that Houston-area police botched their investigations with citizens this year.
In January, Houston officers killed two people in a raid based off of bad information without fully investigating.
In 2014, Houston Police were also caught illegally detaining a man and tried to delete the video.
(VIDEO)
Baltimore brothers set free after 24 years in prison for wrongful murder conviction
Tim Prudente - Contact Reporter
The Baltimore Sun
5/3/19
A judge set free two brothers from East Baltimore on Friday after finding they had been wrongly convicted of a murder conspiracy 24 years ago.
Kenneth “JR” McPherson, 45, and Eric Simmons, 48, were convicted in May 1995 and sentenced to life in prison. They were exonerated during a hearing in Baltimore Circuit Court, then stepped outside to a crowd of tearful family members.
“I was in a pool, a swimming pool, and I was drowning,” McPherson said. He pointed to Lauren Lipscomb, chief of the conviction integrity unit of the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office.
“She dove in and she grabbed me,” he said, “grabbed us out and gave us CPR. You saved my life.”
Two years ago, the brothers wrote to the state’s attorney’s office, and Lipscomb determined their case should be investigated again. Prosecutors sought help from the innocence projects at George Washington University and the University of Baltimore. The teams of researchers and students hunt for wrongful convictions.
Outside the courthouse, Simmons wrapped his grown son in a hug and kissed his cheek.
“My son was 2 years old when I got locked up,” he told the crowd.
In 1994, police arrested and accused the brothers of gunning down Anthony Wooden, 21, shortly after midnight in the Broadway East neighborhood of East Baltimore. Police found more than a dozen shots had been fired. They charged McPherson and Simmons with conspiracy to commit murder.
Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby said the brothers had been wrongly placed among a crew of robbers and gunmen who pursued and killed Wooden. McPherson was at a party, she said; Simmons, home in bed.
“We’ve set another two innocent men free,” she said. “On behalf of the criminal justice system, I apologize to you from the bottom of my heart.”
During the old trial, one witness testified to seeing the crime from a third-floor window about 150 feet away. A 13-year-old boy — attorneys now say he was threatened with homicide charges — identified the brothers as the killers. Then he recanted his statement during trial.
Investigators found evidence to confirm the brothers’ alibis. They also found a witness who said the brothers had no role.
“JR and Eric deserve compensation from the state for the time they served in prison for a crime they didn’t do,” said Shawn Armbrust, executive director of the The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project at George Washington.
An affiliate of the project operates here as the Baltimore Innocence Project Clinic. The brothers become the fifth and sixth men exonerated in recent years by the research teams and conviction integrity unit.
In December, Clarence Shipley Jr., 47, stepped out onto the sidewalk in downtown Baltimore as a free man. He had spent 27 years in prison for a wrongful murder conviction. He too had been convicted on faulty witness testimony.
Last July, the researchers freed Jerome Johnson, who was wrongly convicted of murder in Park Heights and spent 30 years behind bars. Johnson has sued the Baltimore Police Department, accusing detectives of purposefully withholding evidence that proved him innocent.
Previously, Lamar Johnson was exonerated of murder in September 2017 after serving 13 years in prison. He had been misidentified as having the nickname of the shooter.
Malcolm Bryant was exonerated of murder in May 2016 by DNA evidence and set free after 17 years in prison. Bryan died of a stroke less than one year into his freedom.
Such work is undertaken by teams of researchers, lawyers and college students with the innocence projects. Often students and lawyers spend years working to overturn a single case.
Innocence projects attorneys in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., say they have exonerated 33 innocent men who served a combined 600 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. Meanwhile, the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office says it operates the only conviction integrity unit in the state.
Kenneth “JR” McPherson, 45, and Eric Simmons, 48, were convicted in May 1995 and sentenced to life in prison. They were exonerated during a hearing in Baltimore Circuit Court, then stepped outside to a crowd of tearful family members.
“I was in a pool, a swimming pool, and I was drowning,” McPherson said. He pointed to Lauren Lipscomb, chief of the conviction integrity unit of the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office.
“She dove in and she grabbed me,” he said, “grabbed us out and gave us CPR. You saved my life.”
Two years ago, the brothers wrote to the state’s attorney’s office, and Lipscomb determined their case should be investigated again. Prosecutors sought help from the innocence projects at George Washington University and the University of Baltimore. The teams of researchers and students hunt for wrongful convictions.
Outside the courthouse, Simmons wrapped his grown son in a hug and kissed his cheek.
“My son was 2 years old when I got locked up,” he told the crowd.
In 1994, police arrested and accused the brothers of gunning down Anthony Wooden, 21, shortly after midnight in the Broadway East neighborhood of East Baltimore. Police found more than a dozen shots had been fired. They charged McPherson and Simmons with conspiracy to commit murder.
Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby said the brothers had been wrongly placed among a crew of robbers and gunmen who pursued and killed Wooden. McPherson was at a party, she said; Simmons, home in bed.
“We’ve set another two innocent men free,” she said. “On behalf of the criminal justice system, I apologize to you from the bottom of my heart.”
During the old trial, one witness testified to seeing the crime from a third-floor window about 150 feet away. A 13-year-old boy — attorneys now say he was threatened with homicide charges — identified the brothers as the killers. Then he recanted his statement during trial.
Investigators found evidence to confirm the brothers’ alibis. They also found a witness who said the brothers had no role.
“JR and Eric deserve compensation from the state for the time they served in prison for a crime they didn’t do,” said Shawn Armbrust, executive director of the The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project at George Washington.
An affiliate of the project operates here as the Baltimore Innocence Project Clinic. The brothers become the fifth and sixth men exonerated in recent years by the research teams and conviction integrity unit.
In December, Clarence Shipley Jr., 47, stepped out onto the sidewalk in downtown Baltimore as a free man. He had spent 27 years in prison for a wrongful murder conviction. He too had been convicted on faulty witness testimony.
Last July, the researchers freed Jerome Johnson, who was wrongly convicted of murder in Park Heights and spent 30 years behind bars. Johnson has sued the Baltimore Police Department, accusing detectives of purposefully withholding evidence that proved him innocent.
Previously, Lamar Johnson was exonerated of murder in September 2017 after serving 13 years in prison. He had been misidentified as having the nickname of the shooter.
Malcolm Bryant was exonerated of murder in May 2016 by DNA evidence and set free after 17 years in prison. Bryan died of a stroke less than one year into his freedom.
Such work is undertaken by teams of researchers, lawyers and college students with the innocence projects. Often students and lawyers spend years working to overturn a single case.
Innocence projects attorneys in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., say they have exonerated 33 innocent men who served a combined 600 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. Meanwhile, the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office says it operates the only conviction integrity unit in the state.
gestapo usa funnies
Reasonable Force
The everyday assault on Blue Lives.
By Khalil Bendib ~ Other Words.com
