Deaths and Injuries in Police Custody

[Andrea]

Another Police Brutality Lawsuit Has Been Filed Against the Euclid Police Department: VIDEO

https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2017/11/30/another-police-brutality-lawsuit-has-been-filed-against-the-euclid-police-department-video

Lamar Wright is accusing two Euclid police officers of forcibly arresting him last year and "maliciously" filing false charges against him. He filed a lawsuit against the officers and the department today.

Read the lawsuit and watch video of the arrest below.

According to the civil complaint, Wright pulled into a driveway on East 212th Street "to safely use his cell phone" on Nov. 4, 2016. Two armed men approached his vehicle, and, realizing they were police officers, Wright placed his car in park and held his hands up.

Officer Kyle Flagg's gun "was raised and pointed toward Wright," as he stood next to the driver's door. Office Vashon Williams stood behind Flagg, his gun raised as well.

Flagg ordered Wright out of the car. Before the man could exit the vehicle, Flagg grabbed Wright's left arm.

According to the lawsuit: "Flagg yanked on Wright’s left arm. Wright was still seated in the car at this time, and had staples in his stomach and a new colostomy bag. This, in combination with Flagg yanking on his left arm, prevented Wright from extending his right arm toward Flagg. ... Flagg’s conduct caused Wright extreme pain. Wright cried out to Flagg several times that he was hurting his arm, but Flagg ignored him."

The officers then tased and pepper-sprayed Wright, before he had a chance to explain the colostomy bag and pain.

Wright argues that each officer "had the duty and opportunity to intervene to protect Wright, and to prevent the unconstitutional use of force against Wright. Neither Flagg nor Williams did anything to prevent this unlawful attack."

Despite the sudden abdominal pain, the officers forced Wright onto the ground and handcuffed him. "I got a shit bag!" he says to the officers between sputtering coughs on the ground.

As he was arrested, the officers talked between themselves. The interaction is captured on body cam footage, embedded below.

"Dude, I thought he had a gun," Flagg says.

"He started reaching," Williams says.

"Why the fuck are you reaching like that?" Flagg asks Wright.

"I told you I got a bag!"

"No, dude, you were reaching with your right hand."

"I got a bag!"

"What's a bag?" Williams asks.

"A shit bag, man!"

"OK, but what are you doing reaching for it?" Williams asks.

"I don't know if you're getting ready to shoot me or what, man," Flagg says.

Wright was charged with obstructing official business, resisting arrest,
and criminal trespass. He was taken to a hospital, where, he says, the officers "mocked" him for his pain. Later, Wright was jailed. He paid "nearly $900" in bond, according to the suit.

"However, after posting bond, Wright was not released from custody. Instead, his detention was extended without lawful justification. He was transported to the Cuyahoga County Jail, where he was subjected to a search via a full-body x-ray scanner. ... Only after this scanning was complete, approximately four to five hours after bond had been posted, was Wright finally permitted to walk free," he states in his lawsuit.

Wright mentions that he also had to pay a $1,000 fee for the pepper spray stains on his rental car, which was impounded. "The rental company placed Wright on a 'Do Not Rent' list, and refuses to do future business with him," the lawsuit states.

Charges against Wright were dismissed in June 2017.

“I filed this case to stand up against police brutality, and to stand with other victims of senseless attacks by officers from the Euclid Police Department. These officers’ illegal treatment of people in the city must stop,” Wright said in a public statement. “We need justice for all the victims of the EPD."

Since Wright's arrest last year, two high profile incidents have focused the spotlight on Euclid Police Department's personnel. The shooting death of Luke Stewart was swept under the civic rug for months before the state announced that no charge would be filed against officer Matthew Rhodes. Stewart's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

The violent arrest during the traffic stop of Richard Hubbard III resulted in the firing of officer Michael Amiott.

Not for nothing, on Nov. 20, chief Scott Meyer announced that the Euclid Police Department had been awarded the AAA Platinum Award for community traffic safety.

[Andrea]

Graphic video shows Daniel Shaver sobbing and begging officer for his life before 2016 shooting

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/12/08/graphic-video-shows-daniel-shaver-sobbing-and-begging-officer-for-his-life-before-2016-shooting/?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.9ef608c19d35

After the officer involved was acquitted of second-degree murder charges, officials in Arizona publicly released graphic video showing Daniel Shaver crawling on his hands and knees and begging for his life in the moments before he was shot and killed by police in January 2016.

Shaver died in one of at least 963 fatal police shootings in 2016, according to a Washington Post database. And his death was one of an increasing number of such shootings to prompt criminal charges in the years since the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Mo., following the death of Michael Brown. Yet charges remain rare, and convictions even more so.

The shooting, by Philip “Mitch” Brailsford, then an officer with the Mesa Police Department, occurred after officers responded to a call about a man allegedly pointing a rifle out of a fifth-floor window at a La Quinta Inn. Inside the room, Shaver, 26, had been doing rum shots with a woman he had met earlier that day and showing off a pellet gun he used in his job in pest control.

The graphic video, recorded by Brailsford’s body camera, shows Shaver and the woman exiting the hotel room and immediately complying with commands from multiple officers. The video was shown in court during the trial, but it was released to the public after jurors acquitted Brailsford on Thursday.

After entering the hallway, Shaver immediately puts his hands in the air and lies down on the ground while informing the officer that no one else was in the hotel room.

“If you make a mistake, another mistake, there is a very severe possibility that you’re both going to get shot. Do you understand?” Sgt. Charles Langley yells before telling Shaver to “shut up.”

“I’m not here to be tactical and diplomatic with you. You listen. You obey,” the officer says.

For the next five minutes, officers give Shaver instructions. First, an officer tells Shaver to put both of his hands on top of his head, then he instructs him to cross his left foot over his right foot.

“If you move, we’re going to consider that a threat and we are going to deal with it and you may not survive it,” Langley said.

The officer then has the woman crawl down the hallway, where she is taken into custody. Shaver remains on the ground in the hallway, his hands on his head.

Langley tells Shaver to keep his legs crossed and push himself up into a kneeling position. As Shaver pushes himself up, his legs come uncrossed, prompting the officer to scream at him.

“I’m sorry,” Shaver says, placing his hands near his waist, prompting another round of screaming.

“You do that again, we’re shooting you, do you understand?” Langley yells.

“Please do not shoot me,” Shaver begs, his hands up straight in the air.

At the officer’s command, Shaver then crawls down the hallway, sobbing. At one point, he reaches back — possibly to pull up his shorts — and Brailsford opens fire, striking Shaver five times.

According to the police report, Brailsford was carrying an AR-15 rifle with the phrase “You’re F—ed” etched into the weapon. The police report also said the “shots were fired so rapidly that in watching the video at regular speed, one cannot count them.”

Brailsford testified in court that he believed Shaver was reaching for a gun.

“If this situation happened exactly as it did that time, I would have done the same thing,” Brailsford said during the trial. “I believed 100 percent that he was reaching for a gun.”

No gun was found on Shaver’s body. Two pellet rifles used in Shaver’s pest-control job were later found in the hotel room.

After two days of deliberation, jurors found Brailsford not guilty of second-degree murder as well as of a lesser charge of reckless manslaughter.

“The justice system miserably failed Daniel (Shaver) and his family,” said Mark Geragos, an attorney for Shaver’s widow, according to the Arizona Republic.

Attorneys for the officer had petitioned to keep the video from being released, and a judge agreed to block its release to the public until after the trial had concluded.

Brailsford’s attorney, Mike Piccarreta, told The Post in a previous interview that he thinks the body camera footage clears his client.

“It demonstrates that the officer had to make a split-second decision when [Shaver] moved his hands toward the small of his back after being advised that if he did, he’d be shot,” Piccarreta told The Post in 2016.

Piccarreta also said he wasn’t sure his client would be interested in trying to get his police job back.

Shaver’s widow and parents have filed wrongful-death lawsuits against the city of Mesa.

[Andrea]

New York Police Rejecting More of Watchdog’s Findings, Report Says

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/06/nyregion/nypd-ccrb-rejection-report.html

In New York City, the relationship between the Police Department and the Civilian Complaint Review Board is inherently contentious, a panel of outsiders serving as a watchdog over a formidable law enforcement agency that is fiercely protective of its image.

A new report by the board suggests that its relations with the department have become particularly strained, even as the board has sought in recent years to find a measure of common ground on disciplining officers for misconduct.

Last year, the Police Department contested more of the board’s recommendations in cases where board investigators found evidence to support allegations of abuse or misconduct, which in turn significantly lengthened the time before a final decision by the police commissioner.

In response, the board began more strictly enforcing a time limit on the challenges received more than 90 days after the initial decision. But the board’s recommendations are not binding on the commissioner, James P. O’Neill, and in more than than half of the board’s cases that he took final action on between January and June, he set aside or modified the conclusions, reversing a trend over the previous two years when the board and the police commissioner were increasingly in accord.

The report, to be released on Wednesday, is the first to look at how Commissioner O’Neill, who succeeded William J. Bratton in September 2016, has treated the review board’s findings and recommendations. Overall, Commissioner O’Neill imposed discipline on about three-quarters of the 251 officers for whom the review board had recommended punishment in the first six months of this year, a decline from 2016.

In a significant uptick, he rejected 27 percent of the review board’s findings in the first six months of 2017, compared to 17 percent in the same period last year, and he modified the board’s recommendations in 25 percent, up from 21 percent.

Christopher Dunn, the associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the numbers showed the Police Department was “marginalizing” the review board. “When the N.Y.P.D. rejects over half of C.C.R.B. recommendations, that sends an emphatic message to the public and to police officers that the C.C.R.B. just doesn’t matter,” he said.

The report highlights another source of tension between the board and the department — body cameras, which the department began using this year as part of a court-ordered pilot program.

Even with only about 1,200 of the department’s 36,000 officers using body cameras, the review board has struggled to promptly secure footage for its inquiries. It requested video from the Police Department in three cases earlier this year, and the department took nearly three weeks to provide it, according to the report

The mayor has promoted body cameras as a way to curb excessive force complaints and increase police accountability and transparency. But in a statement, Jonathan Darche, the executive director of the review board, echoed concerns in the report that the delays in obtaining footage would grow longer as the program expanded, hampering investigations.

“The City of New York is moving toward a future in which video evidence will offer our investigators more definitive accounts of incidents,” Mr. Darche said. “It is critical for the timely completion of investigations that the C.C.R.B. gains access to body-worn camera footage in a fast and efficient manner as we anticipate an increase in the volume of video evidence.”

Unlike police oversight agencies in cities such as Washington, D.C., the review board does not have direct access to police body camera video. Instead it must go through what has turned out to be an often lengthy process to obtain video from the department.

[*Anya*]

I can usually cut and paste VICE NEWS articles but it is not letting me today.

It is entitled "Shot by Cops and Forgotten: Police shoot far more people than anyone realized"

They reviewed stats from 2010 to 2016




https://news.vice.com/story/shot-by-cops

[Andrea]

New Mexico Sheriff’s Office Pulls Over the Same Black Federal Agent — Three Times in a Month

https://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice/race-and-criminal-justice/new-mexico-sheriffs-office-pulls-over-same-black

By the third time Sherese Crawford got pulled over, she knew it was no matter of coincidence.

Crawford is a 38-year-old African-American Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent recently on temporary assignment in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As part of her work, she was regularly required to rent a car and drive a lonely stretch of I-40 to travel between the ICE field office in Albuquerque and Milan, New Mexico. Over the course of less than a month, she was pulled over three times by the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office — twice by the same deputy.

In none of these stops was she given a warning or citation. Her only crime: driving while black.

The first of the three incidents occurred on April 5, when Deputy Leonard Armijo pulled Crawford over, claiming that he had searched a database for her license plate number and the license plate came back as not on file, indicating that the vehicle might be stolen. This is a highly unlikely claim given that Crawford was driving a rental car provided by ICE.

When Crawford asked him in utter confusion, “What did I do?” Deputy Armijo forced her to exit the vehicle and walk with him to his patrol unit, where he scolded her for “giving him an attitude.” After this incident, Ms. Crawford contacted an ICE supervisor in Albuquerque to complain about the pretextual traffic stop, and the ICE supervisor advised her that the sheriff’s deputy had likely stopped her because she fit a profile: an African-American in a rental car.

That profile got her stopped two more times on April 15 and May 3 by Bernalillo County Deputy Patrick Rael. In the April 15 stop, Deputy Rael pulled her over for allegedly tailgating. When he examined Crawford’s license, he recognized her name and asked her if they had pulled her over the week before. He said he remembered Crawford’s name because an ICE officer and sheriff’s deputy present at the first stop had said that she had an “attitude.” Two weeks later, Deputy Rael pulled over Crawford for a third time alleging she was driving “too slow.”

These three incidents taken together clearly show that the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office has an unconstitutional policy of racially profiling African-Americans. For context, white and Hispanic ACLU of New Mexico staff have been driving the same stretch of road in rental cars for years without incident. It is impossible to imagine that these three stops in close succession with no warning or citation were motivated by anything other than Crawford’s race, especially given that Bernalillo County is overwhelmingly white and Hispanic with only three percent of the population reporting as Black or African-American.

Last week, the ACLU of New Mexico filed a lawsuit against the sheriff’s office alleging that they unlawfully and repeatedly stopped Crawford, a veteran federal law enforcement agent, because of her race. Targeting people because of the color of their skin isn’t just unconstitutional and wrong, it’s bad policing. This kind of biased-based policing destroys public trust in law enforcement and divides communities, making it harder for officers to do their jobs.

As one of the most diverse and multicultural states in the country, racial discrimination has no place in New Mexico, especially not in one of our state’s largest law enforcement agencies. We’re fighting to ensure that anytime you see flashing lights behind you in our state, you can feel confident that it was your lead foot — not the color of your skin — that’s getting you pulled over.

[*Anya*]

Originally Posted by *Anya*

I can usually cut and paste VICE NEWS articles but it is not letting me today.

It is entitled "Shot by Cops and Forgotten: Police shoot far more people than anyone realized"

They reviewed stats from 2010 to 2016




https://news.vice.com/story/shot-by-cops

[Andrea]

Texas boy, 6, killed in deputy-involved shooting days before Christmas

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-boy-age-6-killed-deputy-involved-shooting-days-christmas-n832166

A 6-year-old Texas boy was killed just days before Christmas when sheriff’s deputies opened fire on a woman they had been chasing — and one of the bullets pierced the wall of a mobile home and struck the child in the abdomen.

The woman, a suspected car thief who had been trying to break into the home, was also killed in the shooting on Thursday in the Schertz, a small town some 20 miles northeast of San Antonio, NBC affiliate WOAI reported.

"Right now, what I’m dealing with is, is a tragic accident," Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said at a news conference Friday, although he added the shooting is still under investigation and other authorities like the district attorney’s office would make a final determination.

"In my opinion, it's a tragic accident that led to the death of this young man," he said.

The boy, Kameron Prescott, was fatally shot as deputies chased the approximately 30-year-old suspect in a "prolonged pursuit" that was reported as a call of a stolen vehicle which involved a known suspect who had outstanding felony warrants, Salazar said.

During the first encounter a deputy “identified what he believed was a weapon in the hands of that suspect” and the woman at that time and later threatened deputies with a weapon “and verbalized to him that she intended to shoot him with that weapon” — although no gun has yet been found, Salazar said.

The suspect was not identified by police Friday. Salazar said investigators had found what appeared to be a pipe that had the suspect's blood on it underneath the deck where the shooting took place.

Salazar said the woman got "cornered" at the home in the Pecan Grove mobile home park and threatened Kameron's family as well as officers when they caught up with her. The slain boy and his family do not know the suspect, he said.

"Kameron was the kindest-hearted little boy that I have ever had the pleasure of teaching," the boy’s first-grade teacher, Shanda Ince, said in a statement released by the Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District.

Four deputies fired at the woman, Salazar said. He did not identify the officers, but said they ranged in experience from two years to 27 years on the job and were all shaken by the experience. The deputies involved have been placed on five days of administrative leave, the sheriff's office said Friday.

Salazar said that civilian witnesses as well as the deputies said that the suspect had threatened to shoot them and indicated that she had a gun.

"At the time, we don't believe she was armed. She was presenting to be armed at various times throughout this prolonged pursuit," Salazar said earlier.

Salazar said that his office was still searching the area for a gun and was using a helicopter and dive team in the search. "That deputy is still adamant that what he saw was a handgun," Salazar said.

Salazar said there was good audio of the incident, but said his office did not have clear video of the shooting. A helicopter overhead caught the scene moments after, and the deputy who was had a body camera unintentionally obstructed its view when he raised and fired his rifle.

Salazar said internal affairs is investigating the matter, but said "preliminarily ... it appears as if policies were complied with." As of Friday evening, it was unclear when the sheriff's office would release the video, which Salazar said included video of officers administering first aid to the six-year-old boy.

The deadly drama began around 11 a.m., Salazar said, when a deputy responding to reports of a stolen car found the suspect hiding in a closet and she allegedly told them, "I have a weapon, I’m gonna shoot you."

Somehow, the woman was able to flee the residence into some nearby woods where the deputy lost her and called for backup, Salazar said. She was later spotted fording a river and the deputies chased after her in "water that was up to their chin."

Salazar said the deputies believed she was armed because she appeared to point a weapon at them during the foot chase.

Two relatives were in the mobile home with little Kameron when the fatal shots were fired, Salazar said. Neither was hurt.

"The grandfather of this young man, Kameron’s grandfather, is a friend of mine for the past 20 years," Salazar said. "He's a peace officer. I've actually spoken to him and conveyed messages to the family through him."

[Andrea]

Chicago police raid targets wrong home: 'This is Christmastime. You kicked down my door.'

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-chicago-warrant-wrong-home-raid-20171222-story.html

Jennell Cross had just settled into a leather couch to watch a movie in her daughter’s South Chicago home when she heard one bang, then another against the front door.

Frightened — it was about midnight Thursday — Cross said she ran to the back of the home to warn her daughter. “Somebody’s trying to break in the house,” she yelled.

Shanae Cross said was trying to pull her mother into a restroom for safety when a swarm of cops barged into the house, guns drawn and shouting questions.

The officers moved through the bungalow and tried to handcuff Cross’ 17-year-old brother. The family demanded to see a warrant.

Finally, an officer called out the address on the no-knock search warrant.

It was for a different home on the block.

“Get ya’ll (expletive) and get out my house,” Cross said she told the cops.

An officer yelled, “Everyone out! Wrong house! Let’s go!” and the officers left, she said.

On Friday, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi acknowledged that officers “inadvertently breached the door of the incorrect residence.”

The department “deeply regrets the error,” he said.

Guglielmi said the claims process and repairs to the family’s damaged front door would be expedited.

While the Cross family was talking to a Tribune reporter, police Superintendent Eddie Johnson called to personally apologize. His call went to voicemail, and Cross just shook her head as she listened to it.

She was still angry Friday as she talked about the misguided raid.

“This is Christmastime,” she said. “You kicked down my door.”

Cross, 34, can’t figure out how the police made the mistake: “The number is there in front of the home,” she said.

She said she couldn’t sleep after things settled down early Friday morning. On Facebook, she posted, “Thank U Chicago PD For Kicking Down My Door... Now Im Up All Night Doing Security.” The message included a flashlight emoji.

The damaged front door in her South Chicago neighborhood, where “people are killed every day for nothing,” left her and her family feeling unsafe, she said. Her brother Michael, who the family said officers tried to handcuff, said he was “hurt” by the encounter.

“They drew the guns on us like we were criminals,” Michael Cross said.

“I was scared out my mind,” said Jennell Cross, 53. “This is crazy as hell.”