Deaths and Injuries in Police Custody

[Andrea]

Tell the DA: Indict the LAPD cop who shot at a 13-yr-old boy

https://act.colorofchange.org/sign/indict-lapd-cop/

Orange County is proving to the world once again that police are above the law.

An off-duty LAPD officer is shown on video forcefully grabbing and dragging 13-year-old Christian Dorscht, after he stood up for a girl the officer called a "cunt" and yelled to get off of his lawn. And when other children try to help him, the officer pulls out his gun and fires a shot into the crowd. If that isn't upsetting enough, what happens next is even worse: when police show up, they let the officer--who still hasn't been identified--walk free, but arrest Christian and another 15-year-old boy with charges of "battery and terrorist threats." It's a combination of white vigilante and police violence terror--and it's horrifying.

Hundreds of people poured into the streets in protest to demand the officer be charged. The Anaheim Police Department posted a statement that they are working on an investigation--but the power rests with the District Attorney's office. And technically, after an investigation, the DA's office could still charge the children that were terrorized on that day. That's why we're demanding that Orange County DA, Tony Rackauckas, immediately indict the officer--and refuse to prosecute any of the children involved. Will you sign the petition?

Below is the letter we'll send on your behalf:
Dear Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas:

The video of a grown man physically assaulting a 13-year-old boy after calling a little girl a "cunt" is beyond upsetting. But what makes it even worse is the fact that he is a police officer, sworn to protect the community. Any person who fires a gun, while forcefully grabbing a child, should be held accountable under the full extent of the law. And the people deserve to know who that person is. Police are not exempt.

I join Orange County residents in demanding that you indict this unnamed officer, release his name, and refuse to prosecute any of the children involved. It is unacceptable that two children were arrested and charged, while this officer has walked free. We are counting on you to set things right and stand up for justice.

Thank you,

[Your name here]

[Andrea]

A new lawsuit alleges the city's police stopped thousands of black and Latino residents for no reason

https://news.vice.com/story/milwaukee-cops-sued-over-allegedly-racist-stop-and-frisk-program

The American Civil Liberties Union slapped the City of Milwaukee with a class action lawsuit on Wednesday, alleging that its police officers conduct a “high-volume, suspicionless stop-and-frisk program” that disproportionately targets black and Latino residents. The practice also fuels deep racial inequality in the city’s criminal justice system, which has incarcerated half of the black men in the city, lawyers also argue.

Filed on behalf of six black plaintiffs, the lawsuit contends that in 41 percent of the 33,343 stops that took place between Jan. 1, 2010, and Dec. 31, 2012, Milwaukee police did not record a reasonable suspicion for conducting the stop, required by 1968 Supreme Court case Terry v. Ohio. As a result, the practice violates residents’ civil rights under the Fourth and 14th Amendments of the Constitution.

Police first stopped and searched one of the plaintiffs, a minor who wasn’t named, on his way to a playdate at a friend’s house in 2010, when he was just 11, and he has been stopped two other times since, the suit alleges. In one instance, he said, Milwaukee officers warned him to avoid walking through alleyways because it made him “look suspicious.”

Another plaintiff, Alicia Silvestre, a 60-year-old school secretary, was stopped and searched for running a red light, according to the suit. Police then allegedly followed her home, with her 4-year-old granddaughter in the car, came into her house, and searched her handbag, claiming they had evidence she was using heroin. They ultimately left without charging or arresting her. In fact, most people who are stopped are never charged or arrested, according to Nusrat Choudhury, one of the lead attorneys on the case.

“Those who are [charged] often face charges for low-level offenses, like loitering. Low-level arrests and citations can come with fines and fees,” she said. “When people can’t pay, they find themselves trapped in a justice system in which there are too many ways in, and not enough ways out.”

Milwaukee’s Police Department adopted stop-and-frisk in 2008 as part of a “broken windows” policing strategy, wherein officers crack down on minor offenses in hopes of reducing more serious crime. In New York City, stop and frisk was in effect for more than a decade but was phased out in 2013 after a federal judge ruled the way the city was carrying out the program to be unconstitutional.

Attorneys in the case against Milwaukee are challenging stop and frisk on the same constitutional grounds as attorneys challenging New York’s stop and frisk program. Both cases also cite the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1968 ruling in Terry v Ohio, which determined pedestrian stops are only constitutional if an officer can claim there was a suspicion that a person was armed and dangerous, based on “specific and articulable facts.”

Six years ago, Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn — named as a defendant in the suit — acknowledged to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the city’s policing practices did target people who were not committing crimes. “Yes, of course, we are going to stop lots of innocent people,” he said. “The point is, do folks understand what their role is as a cooperative citizen in having a safe environment?”

As for the current suit, Flynn disputed the ACLU’s characterization of stop and frisk.

“The Milwaukee Police Department has never used the practice of ‘stop and frisk,’” he said in an emailed statement. “No discussion of our crime tactics is complete without reference to the hyper-victimization of disadvantaged communities of color by high rates of crime. But [Milwaukee Police Department] considers it our moral duty to confront violence where it occurs.” Flynn also cited recent police department data from 2016 indicating that nearly 80 percent of homicide victims were black, as were nearly 80 percent of homicide suspects.

Racial inequality in Milwaukee is stark. Half of all black men in their 20s and 30s in Milwaukee Country have spent some time in a correctional facility — 40 percent of them for low-level drug offenses, according to a 2013 study by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Moreover, two-thirds of all incarcerated black men from Milwaukee County came from the six poorest ZIP codes. Wisconsin, as a whole, incarcerates black men at a higher rate than any other state in the country.

There’s no question that crime is a problem in Milwaukee; it was one of the handful of cities that drove up the nationwide murder rate in 2015, according to the most recent available FBI data. But the lawsuit charges that rather than deploy officers to targeted crime “hot spots,” Milwaukee police department instead saturates police districts located in largely black neighborhoods. Residents in one of these districts are therefore more likely to be come into contact with police, which also makes them more likely to be arrested or ticketed for low-level offenses.

“Stop-and-frisk can be part of an effective crime control program, one that focuses on high-crime hot-spots over a period of time, but it can also be a counterproductive tactic,” said Seth Stoughton, a criminal law professor at the University of South Carolina and former Florida police officer. “The constitutional authority to stop someone and, if appropriate, frisk them is a valuable investigative and officer safety tool in individual interactions, but when it is improperly implemented it can increase community hostility in a way that undermines effective policing.”

Milwaukee police conducted nearly 200,000 stops in 2015, almost three times as many stops conducted in 2007 and affecting about a third of the city’s overall population, according to the lawsuit. In spite of this uptick in traffic and pedestrian stops, crime did not go down. In fact, it increased over the last decade, which calls into question the overall effectiveness of stop and frisk practices. Supporters of stop and frisk in New York City voiced concerns that ending the program would cause crime to skyrocket. Violent crime, however, declined in the years after Mayor Bill de Blasio announced plans to end stop and frisk, according to data from the Brennan Center for Justice.

The ACLU’s lawsuit comes as Milwaukee’s police department waits for the Department of Justice to come back to them with a proposed list of non-binding reforms, the outcome of a program their chief opted into.

The ACLU lawsuit seeks improved supervision of Milwaukee police officers, to ensure that they are conducting evidence-based stops. It also seeks the collection of a semi-annual release of stop data, which includes demographic information as well as the basis for the stop. “We are seeking accountability and transparency,” Choudhury said. “It’s a no brainer. This practice must end.”

[Andrea]

Video shows Tucson police shoving 86-year-old woman to pavement

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/27/video-shows-tucson-police-shoving-86-year-old-woman-to-pavement/?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.b6b15760c4ad

The body camera footage of a recent protest against President Trump’s immigration policies in Tucson shows an 86-year-old woman, weighing less than 100 pounds and standing about 4 feet, 5 inches tall, approaching police officers and pointing at them as she shouted indiscernible words.

Then, a police officer appears to push her arm, causing her to fall backward and hit her head on the pavement. As a 65-year-old woman beside her reaches down to help the woman up, an officer pepper-sprays her in the face, temporarily blinding her and causing her to turn away in pain.

The video footage, released Friday by the Tucson Police Department to a local television station, illustrates the tense clashes from the Feb. 16 protest there that began peacefully but soon escalated as protesters reportedly began disrupting rush-hour traffic. Three police officers sustained minor injuries and four protesters were arrested.

Tucson Police Chief Chris Magnus said the department is investigating but told reporters that he thinks his officers handled the crowd appropriately. Local immigrant rights advocates have spoken out against police conduct at the protest, saying that the arrests were unwarranted and that officers used unnecessary force — particularly against elderly women at the rally. The body camera footage, the rally’s organizers say, “confirms police brutality and repression” of peaceful protesters.

The event, organized to protest recent nationwide deportation raids and in solidarity with the National Day Without Immigrants, began at 4:30 p.m. that day in front of Tucson’s downtown Federal Building. By 6 p.m., at least 80 people had joined the protest — organizers said it grew to 200 people at one point. It “suddenly became a safety and logistical challenge” as crowds began veering off the sidewalks and into the path of traffic, Magnus wrote.

An officer issued an emergency call for assistance, and those on the scene urged protesters to leave the street and return to the sidewalks. “Most of the crowd complied, but a very specific subgroup elected to remain in the road and challenge the directions they were given by the officers,” Magnus said, compromising their safety.

“One of the officers working to get a protester back to the sidewalk was assaulted by that protester,” Magnus said. “When the officer went to arrest this subject and place him in a patrol car for transport, he and the other officers who were assisting him were quickly surrounded by members of the crowd.”

Police arrested David Leon, 24, Joan Cichon, 68, and Tanya Alvarez-Blancarte, 42, in connection with aggravated assault on a peace officer. Najima Rainey, 39, was arrested in connection with obstructing and failure to identify.

Rolande Baker, a retired schoolteacher, was the woman pepper-sprayed. When she saw police arresting Leon, she crossed the street, she said in an interview with The Washington Post.

“I saw the police being way more aggressive than I’ve ever seen them be,” she said. She has been participating in peaceful rallies and protests in Tucson since she moved there in 1987, she said, and has never had any problems with local law enforcement.

She described some of the moments captured by the recently released body-camera footage, obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request by Tucson News Now.

The 86-year-old woman had joined with three other women in locking their arms in front of the police van, blocking it from leaving. After officers unlinked the women’s arms, one pushed her to the ground. Officers then pepper-sprayed Baker in the face.

“Here’s this woman on the ground, and they’re so busy pepper-spraying those who were helping her, they never help her up,” Baker said. “Do we look violent to you?”

The 86-year-old woman, whom authorities have not identified, was not injured, and got back up on her own. Baker, however, was still recovering from the pain in her eyes three days later.

“It’s just terrible,” she said. “Would you do that to your mother? Would you do that to your grandmother? Because I’m about the age of your grandmother.”

Steffanny Cott, a protest organizer with immigrant rights group Lucha Unida de Padres y Estudiantes (LUPE), told the Arizona Daily Star that police overreacted to the demonstration. She said that marchers were going around the police vehicle, and that the officer was revving the engine and the sport-utility vehicle nudged Leon, the demonstrator who was later arrested.

LUPE wrote on a GoFundMe page that at least a dozen people, including two children, a retired teacher, a nurse, and two legal observers were “inhumanely pepper sprayed.” The group wrote that cries of “help me” could be heard as one of the leaders of Tucson Black Lives Matter was pepper-sprayed, pushed to the ground, pulled by her hair, and then dragged to the sidewalk and later into the patrol van where she was arrested.

Baker, along with other protesters present that day, attended a City Council meeting last Wednesday to describe the treatment they received from local law enforcement. City Council members called for an investigation and a meeting between some of the protesters and the police officers, Baker said.

Baker worried about both the “aggressive” behavior of police and a bill that passed the Arizona Senate last week that would subject protesters to anti-racketeering legislation, allowing police to seize the assets of anyone involved in a protest that at some point becomes violent.

“They’re trying to shut us up is what they’re trying to do, in my opinion,” Baker said. “It’s scary that this is all happening at the same time.”

[Andrea]

Cop Filmed Beating Unarmed Man, Pulling Gun And Ordering Crowd ‘The F**k Back’

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/vallejo-police-beating-video_us_58c6a7d8e4b0ed71826dfcfa?

A Vallejo, California, police officer was caught on video repeatedly punching a man with his fists and flashlight before threatening a group of bystanders with his service weapon on Friday.

The officer was responding to a report of a man behaving erratically at a Valero gas station, according to San Francisco’s KRON-TV.

The footage, filmed by a bystander and posted to Facebook, begins with the officer pursuing an unidentified man on foot. Moments later, the man appears to give up and sits on a median strip. The officer then rushes over and forcibly shoves the man, who appears to be unarmed, to the ground.

A brief struggle ensues, during which the man can be heard screaming, “I am God, I am God,” as the officer repeatedly strikes him with his fist and a flashlight. In the video clips below, the officer and others can be heard yelling profanities as a crowd gathers to witness the scene.

“The kid surrendered,” one witness told San Francisco’s KPIX 5 News. “The cop, on the other hand, came right up behind him. He immediately dove on the kid and started whaling on him.”

At one point in the video, someone can be heard yelling “Police brutality!” The officer continues beating the man as a second officer arrives on the scene.

When tensions in the crowd seem to rise, the first officer removes his handgun from its holster and tells everyone to “get the fuck back.” Arriving officers then push the crowd back.

The video appears to show at least one bystander’s arrest. The man the first officer beat was charged with being under the influence and resisting arrest, according to KPIX 5. It remains unclear what, if any, charges have been filed against other people at the scene.

Don Cameron, a police trainer interviewed by KPIX 5 on Saturday, defended the actions of the officer involved in the beating.

“That’s what they’re trained to do,” Cameron said. “When we’re down on the ground, we want to get the person in custody as quickly as we can and we use personal weapons.”

Former Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan said that while he agreed with the officer’s initial response, he did not feel a continuous use of force was necessary.

“It does look bad [and] it does appear inappropriate,” Jordan told KPIX 5.

Vallejo police are asking the public to refrain from making judgments until police complete an internal investigation.

“Just like anyone else officers are innocent until proven guilty,” the department said in a statement. “Violence is always ugly but police officers are exposed to violent situations every day and they are required to overcome that violence not just match it. We will investigate this matter and will take the appropriate action if any policy or law has been broken.”

[Andrea]

Man streams video on Facebook as officers shoot him

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/03/17/police-shooting-mentally-ill-black-man/99321362/

ALAMO, Tenn. — At least one Crockett County sheriff's deputy killed a bipolar black man parked sideways on a ramp to a U.S. highway as the man recorded the shooting on live streaming video.

Rodney James Hess, 36, a New Orleans native who had been living in Texas City, Texas, with his fiancée, was shot at around 2:15 p.m. CT Thursday and was transported to Regional One Health medical center in Memphis where he died.

When deputies responded to the area about 75 miles northeast of Memphis because traffic was being blocked, Hess became "erratic," said spokesman Josh DeVine of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. The agency did not say whether investigators found any firearms in Hess' vehicle.

"A Crockett County deputy arrived after drivers were obviously not able to get where they wanted to go," DeVine said. "He then determined that he needed backup. Preliminary information indicates Hess attempted to use his vehicle, his SUV, to strike the officers at least twice."

Hess' videos do not show him attempting to hit the officers who responded though part of the interaction with police does not appear to have been recorded.

Hess recorded two videos on his Facebook page. The first was nearly 20 minutes long and leads up to the confrontation with law enforcement. Hess drives his white SUV around the intersection of Tennessee 88 and U.S. 412 on the overpass, periodically blocking traffic with his car.

“He was not on a suicide mission. He was not trying to harm anybody. He was asking them for help and they shot him down.”
Johnisha Provost, Texas City, Texas

It ends as the first Crockett County deputy arrives and parks near Hess' vehicle.

The second video last about 4 minutes, Hess asks to speak with a commander and drops his phone just before several shots are fired into the SUV.

"He was not on a suicide mission," Johnisha Provost said Friday from their Texas home. "He was not trying to harm anybody. He was asking them for help and they shot him down."

She found out Hess was in trouble when her aunt called her at work to tell her about the Facebook Live post, she said.

"He was on Facebook, and I logged on and I watched it," Provost said.

Hess suffered from bipolar disorder, she said. And she could tell from looking at the videos that he was disoriented and lost.

"He couldn't get his mind together. That's why he asked for a higher command," she said. "I always told him, 'Babe, if you are ever in a situation where you need help, ask the person in charge for the higher command to help you,' and that's what he kept saying."

Hess was in Tennessee visiting his mother, who lives in the Memphis area, Provost said. He had moved to Memphis when he was a teenager and graduated from high school there.

Investigators did not know why Hess was in Alamo, DeVine said.
New Orleans native Rodney James Hess, 36, died March

New Orleans native Rodney James Hess, 36, died March 16, 2017, after a Crockett County, Tenn., deputy shot him on a U.S. 412-Tennessee 88 exit ramp in Alamo, Tenn. (Photo: Courtesy of Johnisha Provost)

"He had been in Memphis for two days after leaving New Orleans," she said. "He was on his way back home to me and his daughter when they killed him."

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is aware of the recording but cannot confirm its authenticity, DeVine said.

"I want people to know he was not a threat," Provost said through tears. "He was a great person, a great dad, a great provider."

They had been together for the past three years.

"He just suffered from mental illness and people need to be aware of how to deal with mental illness," she said. "They could have just shot his tires out or they could have handled it differently. They didn't have to kill him."

[Andrea]

Appeals Court: Officer Who Shot and Killed Innocent Man in His Own Home Cannot Be Sued

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/03/17/appeals_court_rules_officer_who_killed_man_in_his_ own_home_cannot_be_sued.html

Andrew Scott and his girlfriend were playing video games in their Florida apartment late at night when they heard a loud banging at the front door. Scott, who was understandably disturbed, retrieved the handgun that he lawfully owned, then opened the door with the gun pointed safely down. Outside, he saw a shadowy figure holding a pistol. He began to retreat inside and close the door when the figure fired six shots without warning, three of which hit Scott, killing him. Scott hadn’t fired a single bullet or even lifted his firearm.

The figure outside was Deputy Richard Sylvester. He failed to identify himself as a law enforcement officer at any point. He had no warrant and no reason to suspect that Scott or his girlfriend had committed a crime. He did not attempt to engage with Scott at all after he opened the door; he simply shot him dead. And on Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit held that Scott’s parents and girlfriend cannot sue Sylvester because the officer’s conduct was not “clearly” illegal.

The court’s reasoning? Qualified immunity, a constitutionally dubious doctrine that bars individuals from suing the government for violating their rights unless those rights were “clearly established.” And what, exactly, constitutes a “clearly established” right? It’s almost always possible to argue the point either way. Consider the events that led up to Scott’s killing. Sylvester had been pursuing a speeding motorcyclist who, he suspected, might be the same motorcyclist who’d recently committed armed assault and battery. (He had no legitimate reason to suspect this particular motorcyclist was the suspect in question.) Sylvester found a motorcycle at Scott’s apartment complex and decided it was the one he was looking for, even though a license plate search revealed no incriminating information. He and three other officers drew their guns and pounded on Scott’s door. When Scott opened it, Sylvester shot and killed him.

A district court granted Sylvester qualified immunity, holding that no “clearly established law” prohibited his actions. A panel of judges for the 11th Circuit affirmed. And on Thursday, the 11th Circuit, sitting en banc, declined to revisit the panel’s decision. In support of this refusal to rehear the case, Judge Frank M. Hull wrote that Sylvester’s behavior was a variation on “the knock and talk rule.” This rule allows officers to enter private property and knock on an individual’s door for “legitimate police purposes.” Hull reasoned that Sylvester had merely engaged in a form of “knock and talk” and that Scott could have simply declined to open his door. Shooting Scott once he did open the door, Hull wrote, did not violate any “clearly established … constitutional rights.”

In dissent, Judge Beverly Martin shattered this sophistry with painful precision. “Under no standard,” she wrote, “was it reasonable for the police to kill Mr. Scott when he answered the knock at the door to his home. He was not suspected of any crime (much less a violent crime) and he was standing inside his own house without threatening them.” The police, she explained “were not engaged in a permissible ‘knock and talk’ when they killed Mr. Scott.” In fact, “there was no talk here. This was a knock and shoot.” Sylvester had no warrant and no reasonable suspicion that Scott had committed a crime. Martin thus concluded that he clearly violated Scott’s Fourth Amendment rights by conducting a warrantless raid and using excessive force.

The most fascinating part of Martin’s analysis centered around Sylvester’s insistence that the shooting was justified because Scott opened the door while holding a firearm. This “conclusion that deadly force was reasonable here,” Martin noted, “plainly infringes on the Second Amendment right to ‘keep and bear arms.’ ” Citing the Supreme Court’s decision in D.C. v. Heller, which affirmed an individual right to handgun ownership under the Second Amendment, Martin wrote:

If Mr. Scott was subject to being shot and killed, simply because (as the District Court put it) he made the “fateful decision” to answer a late-night disturbance at the door to his house, and did so while holding his firearm pointed safely at the ground, then the Second Amendment (and Heller) had little effect.

That seems exactly right to me—and it raises an important point: The 11th Circuit has now effectively found an individual’s Fourth Amendment rights are diminished whenever he chooses to exercise his Second Amendment right to possess a firearm. Unfortunately, the 4th Circuit reached the same conclusion in a dreadful ruling handed down in January. The Supreme Court should step in soon to remedy the contradiction by clarifying that the exercise of one constitutional right cannot diminish the protection of another. This is an area where liberals and conservatives should be in agreement.

Qualified immunity has clearly become a significant problem in the lower courts. Just last week, another federal appeals court ruled that a homeless man had no right to sue the police officer who allowed his dog to maul him despite knowing the mauling victim was innocent. Its rationale? Qualified immunity. The lower courts are stretching the doctrine past its breaking point. Soon, victims of police violence will almost never be able to sue the officers who violate their constitutional rights. If that’s where we’re headed, why even pretend that we hold those rights in the first place?

[Jesse]

Lawsuit: South Carolina officers shot unarmed man 19 times

Lawsuit: South Carolina officers shot unarmed man 19 times


BY JEFFREY COLLINS
Associated Press



An unarmed man who was chased and tackled by police in South Carolina was shot 17 times in the back by officers as he lay on the ground, according to a lawsuit filed by the man's family.

The officers were trying to arrest Waltki Williams last Dec. 10 after his estranged girlfriend called 911 saying he had pointed a gun at her car at the Sumter Mall, police said at the time.

Williams drove off, but wrecked a short way down the road. He threw an unknown object out a window and started to run, according to the wrongful death lawsuit filed Friday by Williams' sister, Tomekia Kind, against the city of Sumter and its police force.

Several officers tackled Williams and stepped back before at least three of them fired two dozen shots. Williams was struck by 19 bullets, said attorney Carter Elliott.

"I don't know if it gets any more horrible than officers standing over an unarmed man shooting him," Elliott said Monday. He had investigators take pictures of Williams' bullet-ridden body before it was cremated.

Elliott said Kind has seen police video of her brother's shooting and was shocked. The video has not been released publicly as the State Law Enforcement Division is still investigating the killing.

Sumter Police spokeswoman Tonyia McGirt said later Monday that the police agency hasn't been served with the lawsuit. She also said releasing any specific information about the shooting would be inappropriate given the state's ongoing investigation. Nonetheless, she said the police department denies the allegations made in the suit.

In a news release issued shortly after the shooting in December, McGirt wrote that "there was a brief struggle and then an exchange of gunfire."

Little information has been released about the shooting. Carter said Williams was black. The race and names of the officers haven't been made public.

State police have been reluctant to release police shooting videos in South Carolina until cases are closed, even though First Amendment lawyers said there is no exemption to their release under the state's open records law.

They have made exceptions when the videos don't show the shooting itself, such as releasing dashboard camera footage of the traffic stop of Walter Scott, who was shot and killed after running away from a traffic stop in April 2015 by an officer in North Charleston. The former officer is awaiting a second trial on a murder charge.

The Associated Press filed a Freedom of Information Act request Monday for any video footage of Williams' shooting. State police did not immediately respond to that request.

Elliott has not seen the video, but plans to subpoena the city of Sumter and state investigators. The lawsuit does not ask for specific damages.

Solicitor Chip Finney will decide if the officers face charges. He said Monday he has not received the case file from state investigators and had no comment about the shooting or the lawsuit.

About 50 people marched in Sumter asking for justice about two weeks after the shooting.

[Andrea]

ICE Agent Shot Unarmed Man As He Opened Door

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2017/03/28/ice-agent-shot-unarmed-man-as-he-opened-door/

CHICAGO (AP) — A federal immigration agent shot an unarmed man for no apparent reason as the man answered the door at his Chicago home, a lawyer for the wounded man said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the special agent was attempting to arrest someone Monday morning when a second person pointed a weapon at agents. ICE officials said the special agent fired his weapon, wounding the second person.

But attorney Thomas Hallock told reporters Monday that he heard a different version of events when he visited the wounded 53-year-old man at a hospital. Hallock said he was told the man heard a pounding at his door, answered it and was shot “without cause.” Hallock says the man was not armed.

“I don’t know if there was some sort of mistake,” Hallock said.

ICE officials said Monday its Office of Professional Responsibility will review the shooting and details of what happened weren’t being immediately released. The Associated Press sent an email seeking an update Tuesday from ICE.

Hallock said the man and his wife arrived from Mexico more than two decades ago and are legal residents of the United States. Seven or eight people were in the home at the time of the shooting, he said.

The agency has not publicly named the target of the arrest warrant and it wasn’t clear if that person was detained. Hallock said he is also representing the wounded man’s 23-year-old son, who was briefly detained.

Chicago police officials said their officers responded to the call of shots fired. They said they are investigating any underlying criminal offenses and working with prosecutors and the Department of Homeland Security.

[Andrea]

VIDEO: Cop who yelled 'I'm going to shoot you in your head!' now under investigation

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2017/04/video_cop_who_yelled_im_going.html

The Portland Police Bureau has opened an internal investigation into the actions of an officer who threatened to shoot a man in the head -- when the man refused to come out of his motor home.

Officer Matt Bigoni also threatened to shoot the man's dog if the dog came out, made a reference to a funeral bell ringing for the man and warned that "bad things are going to happen" if police had to retrieve him from the motor home. Three police officers ended the approximately 25-minute encounter by bursting into the camper, holding the man down, repeatedly punching the man in the face and fracturing the man's eye socket and nose.

Police said 27-year-old Christopher Lee Fish was resisting their efforts to handcuff him and take him into custody on a warrant for violating the terms of his probation for a prior misdemeanor conviction.

Fish caught about 10 minutes of the officer's threats on cell phone video. The evidence turned out to be a key piece of evidence at trial in February.

"Thank God Mr. Fish turned on his phone," said April Yates, a certified law student who represented Fish, in her closing arguments to the jury.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Christopher Marshall dismissed a charge of interfering with police, and jurors acquitted Fish of the only remaining charge against him: Resisting arrest.

On March 17, a civil attorney for Fish sent the city a notice of his intent to sue the city for alleged excessive force and lasting psychological damage.

Juror Cheryl Barham told The Oregonian/OregonLive that she's glad to hear that Fish has moved forward with plans to sue. She said the actions of the police officers was disheartening; their testimony during trial was "suspicious" and inconsistent; and it didn't take the six-person jury long to determine that Fish wasn't guilty of the crime charged against him.

"It was shocking to hear and see what they did," Barham said of the officers.

Juror Rachel Siegel said she knows Fish had a criminal record and police had a reason for showing up to take him into custody, but beating him was unnecessary and excessive. Siegel thought Bigoni was escalating the situation of a man holed up in his camper, not de-escalating it.

"The state had a very weak case, and I don't know why they even wasted taxpayer money prosecuting this," Siegel said.

Barham said she is not confident that the police bureau's internal investigation will reach a just conclusion.

"I don't have a lot of faith in those," Barham said. "...I don't want that method of policing to be condoned."

*****

The video

Because the lights aren't on, there's little to be seen on the video that Fish recorded from inside his motor home. But there's much to be heard.

It's about 8 p.m. on Sept. 26, 2016. His motor home is parked near Southeast 122nd and Foster Road. Police had a warrant for Fish's arrest, for failing to meet with his probation officer for an oxycodone conviction and failing to complete domestic-violence counseling for a prior misdemeanor assault conviction.

Fish's recording captures Bigoni threatening to shoot Fish in three separate instances, and threatening to shoot Fish's dog in three separate instances.

The recording begins with Bigoni, the officer, saying "Get your ass out here, Chris. You've got a warrant. You're under arrest. You understand me?"

Bigoni warns: "Put your dog in or we're going to shoot the dog if it comes after me."

The dog is not barking, growling or making any audible noise during any point in the video.

Fish alerts the officers: "You guys are being recorded right now."

Bigoni responds: "That's great."

A few minutes later, Fish still hasn't come out of the trailer and says he wants time to put on his shoes and smoke a cigarette.

"Stop moving your hands around, or I'm going to shoot you!" Bigoni says.

Fish responds: "I'm not doing nothing to hurt you guys."

"Stop moving your (expletive) hands or I'm going to shoot you in your head!" Bigoni says to Fish, before addressing the other officers. "All right. That's it. Pepper. Pepper! Break that window."

A few minutes after that, Bigoni appears to be making a literary reference to a funeral bell, by stating: "Listen to the bell, Chris. It tolls for thee."

The police bureau opened its internal investigation on March 15, more than a month after the trial ended -- and on the same day The Oregonian/OregonLive asked the police bureau about the appropriateness of Officer Bigoni's words.

The news organization also asked about the veracity of the testimony of another officer -- Grigoriy Budey, who said he was holding onto Fish's arm in the darkened motor home but didn't see his colleagues punch Fish.

The next day, Police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson responded to the news organization's questions by saying he couldn't talk about specifics because of the internal investigation. When asked, Simpson said the bureau didn't initiate the investigation because of the news organization's questions, and he couldn't elaborate on what sparked the internal review.

"This is a case about officers who went too far -- officers who escalated a peaceful situation and made it violent," said Yates, the certified law student representing Fish. Yates attends law school at New York University and is interning for the Portland-area public defense firm Metropolitan Public Defender Services.

Deputy district attorney Victor Mercado told jurors that Fish took far too long to get dressed, lied to the police by saying they had found the wrong man and could have ended the entire incident before it got started if he just would have stepped out of the motor home in the beginning.

"His tone in the video is not the tone of someone who is scared," Mercado said. "It is the tone of someone who is flippant, cavalier, defiant."

Mercado offered no defense of Bigoni.

"Let's be clear, Officer Bigoni was unpleasant," Mercado said. "I don't think he comes off well in the video."

*****

Fish's testimony

Fish testified that nearly from the start, Bigoni took a "super aggressive" approach. Fish said he didn't want to step out of the motor home and told the officers they had the wrong man because he feared for his life.

"He (Bigoni) instantly said he was going to pepper spray me. And started making threats. Said he was going to tase me or pepper spray me," Fish said. "I was nervous. I had anxiety and shock."

Asked Yates, the certified law student:

"When the officer threatened to shoot you, did you take his threat seriously?"

Answered Fish: "100 percent. ...I could hear it in his voice. You know when someone's sincere. ...If they mean it, you can feel it."

Fish said when police burst in, he dropped to his knees and put his hands behind his back. Police testified, to the contrary, that Fish flailed about and resisted their attempts to handcuff him -- forcing officers Bigoni and Royce Curtiss to have to punch him in the face seven to nine times.

"Hands down, it's the worst pain I've ever gone through," Fish said.

Once in a patrol car, officers wouldn't bring him to the hospital, Fish said, so he lied by saying he swallowed a baggie of heroin -- knowing they would have to bring him to a doctor. Medical staff scanned Fish and found no heroin baggie, but they did treat him for his broken facial bones.

Fish said physically, he still aches. But he hurts psychologically, too.

"I still take PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) medicine," Fish said. "I still get nightmares. And I don't trust cops."

*****

Police testimony

Jurors who spoke to The Oregonian/OregonLive said the inconsistencies between the officers' testimony was obvious.

Curtiss, the first officer to testify, said he didn't recall Bigoni threatening to shoot Fish or his dog. Curtiss said he only remembers that Bigoni made some sort of threats.

Bigoni -- who was the second officer to testify and was caught on the video recording making the threats -- admitted he'd threatened to shoot Fish and his dog. But upon questioning by the defense, Bigoni said he didn't mention those threats in his police report or tell his supervising officer because he didn't think he had to.

"Purely verbal actions on my part do not constitute a use of force," Bigoni said.

Budey, the third officer to testify, didn't mention anything about Fish being punched by his colleagues during direct examination by the prosecutor. On cross-examination by the defense, Budey said he hadn't seen any punches thrown by the officers while he maintained his grip on Fish's arm -- Budey's head no more than a foot or two away from Fish's face.

Budey said it was too dark to see, but he was able to describe in detail other actions of the officers -- including that Fish was "body slamming" the other officers; that one of his fellow officers lost hold of Fish's left arm and that Budey helped by grabbing it; and that another officer was able to wrench back Fish's right arm so it could be handcuffed.

Photos police took of Fish shortly after they pulled him from his camper show his badly bruised and swollen face -- a stream of blood running from a gash on the bridge of his nose.

Simpson, the police spokesman, said that while the internal investigation is ongoing, the three officers -- Bigoni, Budey and Curtiss -- remain on patrol duty.

The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office also is investigating the case in light of questions from The Oregonian/OregonLive. Jenna Plank, the deputy district attorney who oversees the misdemeanor trial unit, said she couldn't answer specific questions because of the bureau's internal investigation.

[Andrea]

New Recording Paints Damning Picture of Cops Who Shot Charles Kinsey

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/charles-kinsey-was-shot-after-a-north-miami-cop-called-halt-it-is-a-toy-9254204

Moments before North Miami police officer Jonathan Aledda shot unarmed behavioral therapist Charles Kinsey this past July 18, another cop on the scene warned there was no gun, only a toy.

After the shooting, an assistant chief repeatedly lied to the chief, and the city manager Larry Spring ignored vital evidence.

Moreover, the crime scene was mismanaged, and the police department and city government were in disarray and plagued by infighting

Those are among the stunning revelations in an hour-long audio recording of North Miami Police Chief Gary Eugene's interview with Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigators, which was obtained by New Times Tuesday.

The shooting in the leg of Kinsey, who was caring for an autistic man, became a national flashpoint in the Black Lives Matter movement thanks to cell phone footage that showed him with his arms in the air, lying on the ground and begging police not to shoot just before he was hit.

The revelations in Eugene's interview raise a burning question: Eight months after the shooting and four months after state investigators closed their probe, why has Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle still not charged anyone involved?

"We are very close to coming to a decision," says Ed Griffith, a spokesperson for Rundle's office.

"It's pretty damning, what’s in that tape," says Michael Joseph, an attorney representing Emile Hollant, a North Miami Police commander suspended after the shooting who is suing the city over his discipline. "The police chief outlines rogue officers in that department and other rogue officials. Something has to be done about this. The city has to do the right thing here and clean house."

After the shooting, union officials justified Aledda's actions by saying he thought the autistic man with Kinsey had a gun — not a toy truck. But Eugene's interview with FDLE directly contradicts that claim. (On Tuesday, North Miami police public information officer declined comment on behalf of the city manager, Spring.)

"I heard the shooter, Officer Aledda, make a statement to the nature of, 'Be advised, I have clear shot [at] subject,'" Eugene says, describing the audio of the police radio just before the shooting. "Later on, a sergeant ... got on the air and said, 'I have a visual, it is a toy. Is it a toy? QRX.' That means, 'Stand by, don't do anything.' Then there is a conversation back and forth. The next transmission was by [another officer saying] 'Shot fired!'"

Eugene's description comes in an hour-long interview that centers on the bizarre aftermath of the case. He doesn't pull punches about the state of the department. Eugene, a veteran City of Miami cop who had been sworn in as chief only six days before the Kinsey shooting, says training was lax and infighting rampant.

"The scene was a mess, to be honest with you," he tells investigators of the Kinsey shooting. "People were walking all over the place. Thank God [Kinsey] did not die. I realized I have a problem with the training of my staff. We're talking about some 15 or 16-year veterans, but in North Miami, a 15 or 16-year veteran may have less experience than a two-year cop in Miami."

Fights in the department were so bad, Eugene said, that he worried his own cops wouldn't even be willing to protect each other, much less the community.

"I'm afraid one of them will get shot for God's sake, and someone will call for backup and they'll say, 'I'm not going,' just to tell you how much the animosity is," he said.

Much of Eugene's interview centers around the suspension of Hollant, a commander who was present at the shooting. The chief paints a dark picture of department infighting, collusion, and incompetence on the part of city officials.

Three days after Kinsey's shooting, North Miami city officials held a press conference announcing that, in addition to Aledda, they had suspended Hollant. In fact, they were suspending Hollant without pay, while Aledda would be on paid leave. Why? According to City Manager Larry Spring, Hollant had lied to Eugene at the scene by telling him he hadn't witnessed the shooting; in fact, Spring claimed, audio showed the Hollant was there.

But Eugene tells a very different story in his interview. He says that Hollant was actually suspended as part of a plot by Assistant Chief Larry Juriga, who had an ongoing feud with Hollant.

Eugene says the trouble started on July 21, three days after the shooting. That's when Juriga came to his office to tell him that Hollant had lied. Juriga said that "we found out he had a radio transmission that (Hollant) actually gave the order, that he made a statement that caused the shooter to open fire," Eugene said. "I was fuming when I heard that ... I made a comment, 'Fuck ... I'm going to suspend him.'"

Eugene says he immediately went to Spring and City Attorney Jeff Cazeau and filled them in. They all agreed to suspend Hollant. But on the drive home, Eugene had second thoughts. He recalled that Juriga and Hollant didn't get along, and decided to listen to the audio from the shooting himself. That's when he says he realized Juriga had lied.

The audio tape, indeed, showed Hollant had warned that the autistic man was loading a gun. But that warning didn't spark Aledda to shoot. In fact, several moments pass until another sergeant on the scene warns that the man is only holding a toy. Only after that warning did the shooting take place, contends Eugene, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

"I heard the sergeant, who advised earlier that it was a toy, say, 'Hold fire! Hold fire! It was a toy,' trying to stop whoever was doing the shooting," Eugene says. "I said, 'Oh lord.'"

The next morning, Eugene says, he went to Spring's office with the tape to ask the city manager not to suspend Hollant after all. But he says the city manager refused to listen to the audio or to the chief's warnings.

"I said, 'City manager, I'm telling you, listen to this CD and make a decision based on this CD,'" Eugene says. "[Spring] slapped his hand on the desk and said, 'You don't understand what I'm telling you. Get control of your people!'"

Eugene says he nearly quit on the spot. "To be honest, I came close, I nearly let him know that I was about to resign," Eugene says.

Instead, he reviewed department rules and realized that Spring could suspend Hollant on his own. So, the chief says, he backed off and let the city manager do as he pleased. But Eugene says he was so disturbed by Jiruga's conduct that he moved him from his post leading investigations to another position heading up city code enforcement.

That wasn't the only disturbing thing he learned. Eugene says he soon found out that before Hollant had been suspended, the commander in charge of the scene during the shooting had tried to intimate him into changing his story. That commander urged Hollant to say he had seen the shooting and that the autistic man did seem to be loading a gun. "He talked to Emile prior to the suspension and told him ... '[By] not saying you saw the guy loading the gun, do you realize that information could have helped my officer?' They were more concerned about clearing the officer of any wrongdoing than actually getting any impartial investigation."

Eugene says the whole incident was a wake-up call to him about bad training in the department. He reiterated that the Kinsey crime scene was one of the worst-managed he'd ever seen. "The scene wasn't well prepared. There was no inner perimeter, no outer perimeter, no media staging area, nothing," he says. When he got to the scene, no one briefed him about what had occurred.

Joseph says the police recording shows his client, Hollant, was wronged by the city manager. Hollant was cleared by the Miami-Dade State Attorney's office, which found that he didn't mislead anyone at the scene. But he remains on paid suspension as the department finishes its own investigation of the case.

"I would say this brings a lot of light on how the city manager and city attorney dealt with the situation. This was political, about PR, rather than finding out what happened," Joseph says. "The chief is in a very precarious spot. There’s some bad apples there. And he knows my client was done wrong. He's caught in the middle."

[Andrea]

Texas cop fatally shoots teen outside house party

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/02/us/texas-cop-kills-teen-trnd/index.html

A police officer in a Dallas, Texas, suburb fatally shot a 15-year-old boy outside a high school house party Saturday night. The police department admitted on Monday that it initially released incorrect information about the shooting.

Officers broke up the house party in response to reports of under-aged drinking. One officer then fired a rifle into a vehicle as it was driving away from the party, fatally injuring the front-seat passenger, according to the Balch Springs Police Department.

Jordan Edwards died from a fatal rifle wound to the head, according to the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office. The freshman Mesquite High School student-athlete's death was ruled a homicide.

Balch Springs Police Chief Jonathan Haber told reporters Monday he "misspoke" earlier when he said the car was driving "aggressively" toward the two officers.

Haber said body camera footage of the incident showed the car was driving forward, away from the officers, not reversing toward them as he originally reported.

"I take responsibility for that," Haber said.

The officer's behavior "did not meet our core values," Haber said.

Police were looking for the owners of the house when shots were allegedly heard in the area, creating chaos right before Jordan was shot, according to Balch Springs Police Public Information Officer Oscar Gonzalez.

Haber declined to confirm whether any shots were confirmed to have been fired or whether the boys in the car were armed, citing the ongoing investigation.

The officer fired three shots into the car, Edwards family lawyer Lee Merritt told CNN based on eyewitness accounts from the other boys in the car.

Jordan's 16-year-old brother and their three friends were detained at the scene and taken away from Jordan's wounded body to the Dallas County Sheriff's Department, where they were eventually interviewed as witnesses. The boys were not arrested or charged, according to Merritt.

Jordan was transported to Baylor University hospital where he later succumbed to his injuries, according to a BSPD press release.

The Dallas County Sheriff's Department is conducting a criminal investigation into the shooting in tandem with the Public Integrity Unit from the Dallas County District Attorney's Office. Officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the investigation.

The 6-year veteran of the Balch Springs police force who fired the fatal shot was placed on administrative leave, but has not been charged or arrested. His identity is not being released at this time, Haber said.

The officer had no similar prior incidents, Haber said, and BSPD is conducting a separate internal administrative review of the incident.

"The Balch Springs Police Department, regardless of how this whole thing turns out, we are here to serve this community," Haber said.

Haber met with Jordan's parents twice since his death, expressing condolences on behalf of the department and the city.

The Edwards family's lawyer will meet with the investigating parties this week on their behalf.

"We are declaring war on bad policing," Merritt said in a press conference held on behalf of the family Monday. "America throughout the country must figure out a way to police its citizens without killing them."

Jordan's family has not spoken publicly, wishing to grieve privately until after the funeral, Merritt told CNN. They saw Jordan's body for the first time late Monday night, he said.

Jordan will be remembered for his smile, those that knew him told reporters. Grief counselors were made available at Mesquite High School, because Edwards was such a well-known, well-liked member of the community, Merritt said.

"The entire district -- especially the staff and students of Mesquite High School -- are mourning this terrible loss," a Mesquite High School press release said.

A prayer vigil was held Monday night at the high school for the community. A funeral has not yet been scheduled, according to Merritt.

[Andrea]

Sheriff, 4 staff charged after inmates abused with stun guns

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/nation-world/national/article148886119.html

Utah's attorney general filed charges Friday against a former sheriff and four deputies in a rural county after prosecutors say inmates were stunned with a Taser in exchange for soda or as hazing when assigned to a work crew.

Former Daggett County Sheriff Jerry R. Jorgensen has been charged with three misdemeanor counts of misconduct, obstructing justice and failing to keep inmates safe. He resigned last month as state officials investigated allegations of inmate abuse.

According to the charges, former deputy Joshua J. Cox threatened inmates with his personal Taser in 2015 and 2016.

On one occasion in August 2016, Cox promised five inmates a case of soda if they could endure the stun gun for five minutes.

Two months later, Cox used the Taser as an "initiation" to an inmate work crew and required one inmate to withstand the Taser in exchange for keeping his work privileges, prosecutors said.

Court records allege that between December 2016 and February 2017, Cox brought uncertified police dogs into the jail and ordered two inmates to participate in training the dogs. Cox was not a certified K9 officer and both inmates were bitten by the unleashed animals, prosecutors said.

Cox faces 11 counts, including felony aggravated assault, weapons charges and theft.

Prosecutors said the theft charge was filed because Cox's Taser was stolen from the police department where he used to work.

No telephone number or defense attorney was publicly listed for Cox. He was fired in April, according to sheriff's office spokeswoman Susie Potter.

Former Deputy Benjamin C. Lail was charged with aggravated assault for pointing a Taser at a woman's feet in a control room at the jail and saying, "OK, you're done, now get back to class."

The woman was not identified. Utah Department of Corrections spokeswoman Maria Peterson said the woman was a volunteer at the jail.

Jorgensen is accused of failing to properly supervise his jail staff and putting inmates in danger. The obstruction of justice charge stems from the former sheriff allegedly denying that he received an email from an unnamed woman detailing how Lail intimidated her by pointed a stun gun at her feet.

Deputies Logan Walker, 26, and Rodrigo Toledo, 41, are accused of being witnesses to Cox's use of the stun gun on inmates. They are charged with misdemeanor official misconduct for not stopping Cox and failing to report it after it happened.

Lail, Toledo, Walker and Jorgensen could not be reached for comment and did not have listed attorneys to speak on their behalf Friday.

Court records show the former sheriff and his four former deputies are scheduled to make their first court appearances on June 9. All five are required to turn themselves in at the Uintah County Sheriff's Office by the end of May to be fingerprinted and have their mugshots taken.

Attorney General Sean Reyes in a statement called Cox's alleged actions "unbelievably inhumane" and "a reprehensible miscarriage of justice." The attorney general said the actions of the other men were inexcusable.

Daggett County and the sheriff's office had no comment on the charges or those named in the case, according to an emailed statement from Potter late Friday.

State officials began investigating the rural eastern Utah jail earlier this year after Jorgensen reported possible mistreatment of inmates.

The jail, near Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area in the small town of Manila on the Wyoming border, has been empty since February, when Utah's Corrections Department learned of the allegations and removed 80 inmates, all male, to other jails or prisons.

About 15 of those inmates have now been paroled or discharged, according to Peterson.

Utah Corrections Executive Director Rollin Cook said in a statement Friday that inmates would not be returned to Daggett County until state officials have confidence in new leaders and security at the jail.

[Andrea]

Betty Shelby Found Not Guilty in Shooting Death of Unarmed Black Motorist Terence Crutcher

http://www.theroot.com/betty-shelby-found-not-guilty-in-shooting-death-of-unar-1795320493

The jury in the trial of Tulsa, Okla., Police Officer Betty Shelby deliberated for nine hours Wednesday before finding her not guilty of manslaughter in the shooting death of unarmed black motorist Terence Crutcher.

KTUL reports that the Crutcher family is expected to address the media with the district attorney after a brief meeting.

Crutcher’s twin sister, Tiffany Crutcher, announced that the verdict had been reached just after 9 p.m. Central.

Just hours into the deliberations, defense attorney Shannon McMurray requested a mistrial, alleging prosecutorial misconduct, but the judge denied the request.

The jurors sent the judge a note asking if they could make a statement when they delivered the verdict, but the judge said no and advised them that they were free to discuss the case after the trial.

The case was handed to the jury around noon Wednesday after both the defense and prosecution made closing statements.

As previously reported on The Root, Shelby, 43, was charged with first-degree felony manslaughter in the September 2016 fatal shooting of Crutcher on a Tulsa highway after his car broke down.

Video of the shooting showed Crutcher raising his hands as he walked to his vehicle, and in the audio, you can hear the pilot of a helicopter overhead stating that Crutcher looked like a “bad dude.” Earlier this week, Shelby stated that it was the scariest moment of her life and that she was filled with fear. Tulsa police said that Crutcher was not complying with their demands when he was shot, but the video seemed to show a totally different story.

Shelby took the stand in her own defense in the weeklong trial, testifying that her training led her to shoot Crutcher because she believed that he was reaching for a weapon through a partially open window in his vehicle.

Shelby has routinely denied that race was a factor in her response to the encounter, blaming Crutcher’s actions and saying that he seemed to be high on drugs and did not respond to police commands as he walked toward his vehicle.

Prosecutors countered that drug use and ignoring commands were no reason for an officer to use deadly force against a civilian.

We all saw that shooting on video, and we all saw that man walking with his hands up, his back to Shelby.

We all saw her shoot and kill him on camera.

He was not a threat to her.

This is more injustice.

This. Must. Stop.

[Andrea]

Dallas school police officer slammed a 6th-grader to the ground, fractured her clavicle

https://mic.com/articles/177526/dallas-school-police-officer-slammed-a-6th-grader-to-the-ground-fractured-her-clavicle#.YM7WEWAOw

A police officer from Dallas Independent School District has been put on administrative leave after allegedly slamming a 12-year-old girl to the ground and fracturing her clavicle.

In the video, sixth-grader Mariana Benton is seen fighting with another female student on Piedmont Global Academy School's campus. The two girls are surrounded by other students until an unnamed Dallas ISD officer break up the fight, pick up Benton and then slam her to the ground. Students can be heard shouting in horror.

Benton also said the officer pepper sprayed her.

"The officer came and grabbed me and body slammed me, then put the pepper spray," Benton told local television station KXAS. "He pepper sprayed me in the eyes and I couldn't open my eyes because it was burning me, the eyes, so then they took us to the nurse to put water."

The school district looked into Benton's conduct after the incident and suspended her for three days, according to the Dallas Morning News. Benton was also hospitalized for a fractured clavicle.

As for the officer, Piedmont Global Academy put him on administrative leave and refused to release their name. According to the Root, the school district said the officer's action do not "represent the type of response we want our officers to display."

But Alma Valdez, Benton's mother, told KXAS the officer should not be working with children based on how he treated her daughter.

"I don't want him being suspended, I want him get fired," Valdez said. "Why is he still working with kids? He's not capable of working like that."

"It makes me mad, angry," Valdez told local station KTVT. "She's 12 years old. She weighs 100 pounds. He should be fired."

According to KXAS, Valdez is looking to hire an attorney and file a lawsuit against the school. She also said a school official forced students who filmed the violent incident to delete their videos.

[Andrea]

Police speak less respectfully to black drivers, study suggests

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/05/health/police-language-race-oakland-study/index.html?sr=twCNN060617police-language-race-oakland-study0546AMVODtopPhoto&linkId=38390158

A succession of high-profile police shootings and racial tensions swept the United States last summer. One year later, researchers are still trying to better understand the delicate relationship between police and the communities they patrol.

Now instead of focusing on police use of force, some researchers are turning their attention to use of language.

A new study suggests that police officers in Oakland, California, are more likely to speak to white community members with a higher level of respect than black community members. The study, which published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, used police body camera footage as data.

More research is needed to determine whether this racial disparity in language occurs in other communities across the US but Rob Voigt, lead author of the study, said that it's worth investigating.

"At the very least this provides evidence for something that communities of color have reported, that this is a real phenomenon," said Rob Voigt, a doctoral student in the linguistics department at Stanford University.
Voigt added that he and his colleagues were grateful to the Oakland Police Department for allowing them to study the department's body camera footage.

"We're also hoping it inspires police departments to consider cooperating with researchers more. And facilitating this kind of analysis of body camera footage will help police departments improve their relationship with the community and it will give them techniques for better communication," he said. "When people feel they're respected by the police they are more likely to trust the police, they are more likely to cooperate with the police, and so on and so forth. So we have reason to expect that these differences that we find have real-world effects."

A racial disparity, hidden in language

The study involved 183 hours of body camera footage taken during 981 routine traffic stops by 245 different Oakland Police Department officers in April 2014. The footage of the officers' interactions with community members was transcribed.

The researchers then randomly selected 312 utterances spoken to black community members and 102 spoken to white community members for volunteers to analyze.

The researchers asked the volunteers to read the transcript of one community member's utterance and then the utterance by the police officer that followed in response. The volunteers rated on a four-point scale how respectful, polite, friendly, formal, and impartial the officer was.

Each interaction was rated by at least 10 volunteers, who did not know the names or races of the officers, community members, or any other contextual or identifying information.

Next, the researchers developed a computer model to rate how respectful each interaction was based on pre-existing scientific literature about respectfulness and politeness.

For instance, the computer measured how often police officers introduced themselves, used formal titles such as ma'am or sir, used words like please and thank you, apologized, such as saying "sorry to stop you," and reassured safety, such as saying "drive safe, please" -- all of which are utterances that show signs of respect, according to the study.

For example, the transcripts in the study included these sentences: "Sorry to stop you. My name's Officer [name] with the Police Department." "There you go, ma'am. Drive safe, please."

Less respectful utterances included using informal titles like "man" or first names, or asking for agency, such as saying "do me a favor."

The transcripts in the study included these sentences: "All right, my man. Do me a favor. Just keep your hands on the steering wheel real quick." "[First name], can I see that driver's license again?"

The researchers used the computer model to automatically estimate the level of respect for every utterance, and to estimate how respectful a human might have rated each utterance.

After analyzing all of their data, the researchers found that white community members were 57% more likely to hear an officer say one of the most respectful utterances in the dataset, such as apologizing. Whereas, black community members were 61% more likely to hear an officer say one of the least respectful utterances, such as informal titles.

The racial disparity occurred despite the police officers' race and among most officers, not outliers, the researchers found. The disparity emerged at the early onset of interactions and was still present after controlling for whether a community member was arrested, given a citation, or searched, Voigt said.
CNN reached out to the Oakland Police Department for comment on Monday. A public information officer responded that department officials and researchers plan to provide comment soon.

The study "is self-limiting in the sense that they focused only on transcriptions of verbal utterances in traffic stops, but I think this is a wise first step," said Jack Glaser, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the study.

"I am aware of community surveys that have been conducted, and they certainly indicate that black people feel treated more poorly by police, but this is the first analysis of body-worn camera data that I'm aware of," he said. "It contributes a lot to our understanding of racial disparities in police-civilian encounters."

Glaser added that interactions in which a community member might feel disrespected not only can be stressful but can lead to behavioral and health effects and even acute trauma for that community member.

John Dovidio, a professor at the Yale School of Public Health who was not involved in the study, agreed.

'How can you change the training?'

"If any of us feel that we've been disrespected in the situation, it's psychologically wounding to us," Dovidio said.

He added, however, that respect appears to be a particularly deep-rooted need for communities that historically have been disadvantaged.

"If you bring a majority and a minority group member together, a white and a black person, in those interactions the basic needs and goals of the white and black person are very different," Dovidio said.

"The white person in these intergroup interactions tends to want to be liked. They want to be sort of affirmed as being a good person," he said. "But people of color, and this occurs for other historically disadvantaged groups, their major goal is to be respected. ... Everybody wants respect, but minority group members in interracial interactions with authority figures have a particularly heightened need to feel respected in those interactions and that's why respect is such a key variable."

The first step to improving everyday interactions between police and the communities they serve is awareness, which the new study provides, Dovidio said.

"What this does is, makes it real, makes it tangible, makes it objective," he said. "It can then be used not to blame people ... but what it can be used for is a tool for teaching people how to not do something that they may be doing unintentionally."

In other words, police and other people of authority tend to unconsciously or implicitly display this disrespect through language, Dovidio said.

"The outcome of this disrespect is actually, it's a lose-lose situation, because law-abiding people in a community don't want crime. Police don't want crime. But the actions of the police officers undermine the trust and connection of them with the community," Dovidio said.

"Rather than blame police officers, I think the question is, how can you change the training and the experiences that police officers have?" he said. "I would hope that this article is not interpreted as a way of saying police officers are bad, but rather, here's some ideas of how police training can be improved and police practice can be improved to get the trust of the community, to create a relationship that's healthy and cooperative."

[*Anya*]

When I see that there is a new post in this thread, I have to prepare myself for another large bite of prejudice, death, injury, slur or bias.

It is hard to read but I know that I must.

Re: Andrea's post below; it is no shocker to find that police speak less respectfully to black drivers.

They certainly don't hesitate to shoot them when unarmed or undefended, either.

I listened to LeBron James speak at his press conference May 31st. It was very painful to listen and to see the sadness in his face. He said:

“I think back to Emmett Till’s mom, actually,” James said. “That’s one of the first things I thought of. The reason she had an open casket was that she wanted to show the world what her son went through as far as a hate crime, and being black in America. No matter how much money you have, no matter how famous you are, no matter how many people admire you, being black in America is tough. We’ve got a long way to go, for us as a society and for us as African Americans, until we feel equal in America.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.a3bdda8353fe

[Andrea]

Man dead after being shot by LAPD officers and run over by their cruiser; toy gun found near body, police say

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-wilmington-police-shooting-20170607-story.html

Los Angeles police officials are investigating how officers killed a man in Wilmington, first shooting him before their cruiser ran over and pinned him, authorities said Wednesday.

The officers had responded about 9 p.m. Tuesday to a report of a man with a handgun in the 1100 block of North Wilmington Boulevard, according to a statement released by the LAPD.

A toy gun was found at the scene by investigators, police said in the statement.

When officers arrived, they saw a lone man in his mid-20s and the deadly encounter unfolded — but authorities provided a vague account of what transpired.

“Believing this may be the suspect from the radio call, they directed their attention toward him; at that time there was an officer-involved shooting,” the department said in the statement.

LAPD officials did not say whether officers saw the toy gun before opening fire or whether the man aimed it at police.

Police said several shots were fired and the man fell to the ground. Then the officers’ cruiser “traveled forward” and struck the man, pinning him underneath it, police said.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene. The exact cause of his death — gunshot wounds or the weight of the cruiser — has not been determined.

Ed Winter, a deputy chief of investigations for the L.A. County coroner’s office, said the man has not yet been identified.

During the deadly encounter, one of the officers suffered an injury to his arm and was taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Police have not explained how the officer was injured but said he was released Wednesday after treatment.

The incident may have been caught on video as police cruisers in the LAPD’s South Bureau are equipped with dash cameras.

The initial police radio call of an "officer down" overstated the extent of the officer’s injury, and a dispatcher described the officer as having been shot in the arm.

"Shots fired; can you help," an out-of-breath officer is heard saying into his radio. The officer then advised where to approach the scene from on Wilmington Boulevard.

"Suspect down by vehicle; possible gunfire," the officer said shortly after to a dispatcher. Another officer's voice interjected, "We've got an officer down."

A dispatcher then tells officers over the radio that one of the officers at the scene was shot in the arm, and directs all units to Denni Street and Wilmington Boulevard.

Once the LAPD’s specialized shooting investigators arrived, they determined that the officers were not fired at and that the item recovered at the scene was a toy gun.

Initially, a police spokesman had said another suspect was in custody. But as the investigation evolved, LAPD Communications Director Josh Rubenstein said only one suspect — the man who was fatally shot — was involved in the incident.

A multi-agency investigation is underway, which is standard procedure for all LAPD officer-involved shootings. It will be reviewed by the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, the Police Commission and its inspector general.

A white shade tent covered the police car's front end on the sidewalk into early Wednesday morning when coroner's investigators entered the area to remove the man's body.

Tuesday night's shooting is two blocks away from where 17-year-old Fabian Nunez was gunned down earlier that same day.

[Andrea]

Missouri parole board played word games during hearings with inmates

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/missouri-parole-board-played-word-games-during-hearings-with-inmates/article_ce6cba9b-5932-52a4-899a-f7644ec4d7d8.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tw itter

The Missouri Board of Probation and Parole allegedly toyed with prisoners during hearings by trying to get them to say a chosen word or song title of the day, such as “platypus” and “Hound Dog.”

Don Ruzicka, a member of the seven-member board, along with an unnamed government employee were accused of keeping score during the hearings, according to a Department of Corrections inspector general report completed on Nov. 1, 2016.

Each time one of them used a predetermined keyword while interviewing an offender they earned a point. Two points were granted if the offender repeated the word. Occasionally, the duo spiced the game up by wearing matching clothing, like the time they dressed in black shirts, ties, pants and shoes.

The Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center at St. Louis recently obtained the state report and released it Thursday after a news conference, asserting that public servants “played games with people’s lives and liberty.”

“These activities, so far as we are aware, have never come to light in the public’s eye,” said Mae Quinn, director of the nonprofit human rights law firm. “They simply were not taking their duties seriously and their role as appointed officials and public servants seriously.”

The group, and other supporters, called on Gov. Eric Greitens to reform the board, including immediate removal of Ruzicka.

The seven-member parole board is responsible for determining whether a person confined in the Department of Corrections will be paroled or conditionally released, and for supervising thousands of people on probation and parole. They run parole hearings at prisons and by video.

Critics, including people who held leadership positions for the corrections department, have said in recent years that they want the parole board to be reformed. They believe it operates almost entirely in secret and has become a plum place for former lawmakers to land since term limits have been in place.

Board members are appointed by the governor for six-year terms. Ruzicka, a former conservation agent and Republican state representative from Mount Vernon, began his term Dec. 21, 2012. Former Gov. Jay Nixon appointed him. He was paid $85,204 in 2016, not counting retirement benefits.

Inspector General Amy Roderick concluded in her report that Ruzicka and an unnamed corrections employee who attended parole hearings violated a governor’s executive order and other procedures by failing to conduct state government in a manner that “inspires confidence and trust.”

Referencing recordings of some hearings, Roderick wrote: “It seemed they were trying so hard to embed the words or song titles into their questions or statements that they were not focused on the proper questions to ask nor were they actively listening to the responses from the offenders … and, most times, it seemed the offender was being made fun of by the use of such words and song titles during the process.”

According to Roderick’s report, the report was to be delivered seven months ago to then-Parole Board Chairman Ellis McSwain Jr. and the chief state supervisor for the Department of Corrections. In March, Greitens elevated Republican board member Kenneth C. Jones to the role of chairman, replacing McSwain, a Democrat. McSwain remains a member of the parole board.

A corrections department spokesman said on Thursday that department officials had no comment.

“Hootenanny,” was the word of the day on June 21, 2016.

According to the inspector general report, the unnamed department employee used the word four times during one hearing. Each time Ruzicka laughed out loud.

During the hearing, the employee whispered to Ruzicka: “I got four (points).”

In another hearing that day, Ruzicka referenced the song “Peggy Sue.” He asked the offender if she was named after the song. The department employee laughed and said he was just trying to lighten the mood.

“Or you could just have a hootenanny,” Ruzicka countered.

“Yes, we could have a hootenanny,” the employee said, whispering that points would be counted.

Asked when she first used heroin, the offender said it was at a rave.

“I thought they might have called it a hootenanny,” said the employee.

“A what?” the offender responded.

“A hootenanny,” the department employee said. “A party.”

Ruzicka and the employee laughed again.

“Platypus” and “armadillo” were the words on June 22, 2016, followed by “biomass” and “manatee” the next day. At hearings in July, song titles included “Soul Man,” “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight,” “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad,” “Hound Dog,” and “Folsom Prison Blues.”

For instance, in a parole hearing for a sex offender, the department employee said: “Your grandma would probably be like he ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, you know it.” The employee added that if the offender kept up the behavior, the offender might be placed in a sexually violent predator unit, which is run by the Department of Mental Health and holds patients indefinitely. In that case, the employee said the offender might as well learn the song “Folsom Prison Blues.”

More laughing.

Asked by the inspector general how incorporating words and song titles in the hearing helped determine risk and potential release, Ruzicka said: “Through the complete and thorough hearing process we were able to determine the release date.”

Why “platypus”?

Ruzicka said: “I guess if they were rare items he’d taken and a platypus is a rare and unusual thing.”

Why dress the same?

Ruzicka laughed, according to the report, and said: “Just another one of those things.”

Ruzicka told the inspector general they played the game a few days and stopped.

Asked by the inspector general if “all of this sounded ridiculous,” Ruzicka said: “Yeah. Like I said, it happened and it was over … maybe that little check in here (he was pointing to his chest) was to move on. We didn’t discuss ending it. It just kinda ended.”

The investigative report says “several employees” were aware of the game being played by the duo and did not report it.

Amy Breihan, a lawyer with the MacArthur Justice Center, said such behavior potentially taints thousands of cases.

“Who knows how many hearings were affected by this conduct?” she said. “Even in hearings where literal games were not played, one has to question how seriously parole staff are taking their duties.”

At least one family is outraged. Two weeks ago, Ruzicka was part of a parole hearing for Norman Brown, who was involved in a fatal robbery when he was 15. He’s been in prison 28 years, though he wasn’t the shooter, said his attorney. His parole was recently denied.

“This does not sound fair having hearings conducted by a man who sees people like my brother as a means of entertainment,” Shatiega Brown, 36, Brown’s sister, said at the news conference. “Imagine if this was your family, your father, your brother. Would you think this is right, appropriate or just?”

She and others at the news conference urged the governor to take action.

“I am pleading with you so that my brother can have a second chance, a fair chance,” she said.

[Andrea]

Officer had body camera turned off at scene of Taser incident, a violation of department policy

http://www.omaha.com/news/crime/officer-had-body-camera-turned-off-at-scdene-of-fatal/article_5a987e88-4933-5d3f-8ff1-6617b94723c3.html

Only one of the four officers who dealt with Zachary Bearheels during his fatal encounter with police was wearing a body camera. And the officer’s camera was turned off — a violation of Omaha Police Department policy.

Scotty Payne, who used a Taser on the handcuffed Bearheels, was the sole officer with a body camera, said Capt. Kerry Neumann of the Omaha Police Department. It’s not clear why Payne’s camera was off.

“It’s a violation of our policy that he didn’t have the camera on,” said Neumann, who leads the team that investigates in-custody deaths. “At this point we don’t know what the reason behind it is.”

The Omaha World-Herald has learned that Payne and another officer at the scene, Ryan McClarty, have been recommended for termination.

Police went to the Bucky’s convenience store at 60th and Center Streets on June 5 to respond to a disturbance about a person refusing to leave.

Bearheels, 29, was asked for his identification and why he was at Bucky’s, but his speech was garbled and he displayed signs of impairment, Schmaderer said last week.

Officers put Bearheels in handcuffs, Schmaderer said. Payne used a Taser on him after he struggled with them and refused to get into the back of a police cruiser. Payne shocked Bearheels with the Taser 12 times, and McClarty repeatedly struck Bearheels with his fists, Schmaderer said.

Bearheels was not breathing and had no pulse when he was taken to the Nebraska Medical Center, where he died.

In addition to the four officers already on scene, two officers arrived toward the end in the encounter. Those officers, Michael Hempel and Ashley Morris, were wearing body cameras, and those cameras were on, Neumann said.

“They had very minimal involvement in this,” he said.

Neumann declined to say what the video from those body cameras showed. Much of the encounter was caught on cruiser cameras, and that video and audio will be released either after a grand jury decision or during a potential criminal court case.

The Omaha Police Department began using 115 body cameras last spring and will distribute more to officers next year. The goal is to eventually equip all uniformed patrol officers and all gang unit officers with cameras.

Department policy requires officers activate body cameras when they arrive on scene. If they do not do so, they must document why.

[Andrea]

Jersey City suspends officers who kicked victim on fire after crash, 2 deputy chiefs transferred

http://pix11.com/2017/06/12/jersey-city-suspends-officers-who-kicked-victim-on-fire-after-crash-transfers-others/

Four police officers in Jersey City who were caught on camera kicking a man who was on fire after being struck by a car as it crashed have been suspended indefinitely without pay, local officials said.

Two deputy chiefs were also transferred and face charges for their role in the incident, Mayor Steven Fulop said. The prosecutor is still involved in determining any additional punishment.

Fulop has called for the termination of the officers after the incident.

It started after Leo Pinkston, 48, crashed his car in front of the EconoLodge after being chased by cops for six miles. Officers had fired shots as they chased him.

The officers kicked a man on fire after he crawled away from the wreckage. But the man wasn’t Pinkston; it was an innocent bystander.

4 police officers suspended without pay + 2 D.Cs transferred. 4 Officers face dept charges. Next step is wait on feedback from prosecutor

“Where appropriate, there could, and probably would be criminal charges,” said Mayor Steven Fulop.

It’s unclear why the officers decided to kick the man instead of helping him.

“Look, we have a high standard for the police department,” said Mayor Fulop in an interview after the incident first came to light. “They do a tremendous job. We’re not going to let just a few bad apples be a reflection on the entire police department or the entire city. We’re going to be aggressive with them.”

Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez released a written statement that reads in part:

“This video is now part of all the evidence we are considering as we investigate the actions of all individuals…we will utilize all resources available to the Prosecutor’s Office for a full and thorough investigation as we seek to bring this matter to a rightful conclusion.”

Carmine Disbrow, president of the Jersey City Police Officer union, told PIX11 the entire incident is being investigated.

“We repeat our call for a full and impartial investigation into this incident,” Disbrow said. “Unfortunately Mayor Fulop continues to indicate that he has no intention of allowing this to be the case.”