Deaths and Injuries in Police Custody

[JDeere]

Originally Posted by Andrea

Caught on Camera: Texas Transit Cop Resigns After Train Station Beating

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/caught-camera-texas-transit-cop-resigns-after-train-station-beating-n654821

A Texas transit cop resigned on Monday after a train station camera captured the officer repeatedly beating a man with a baton two weeks ago, authorities said.

Metro Police Department Chief Vera Bumpers said in a statement that a review board concluded that the officer, identified only as J. Warren, used excessive force in the Sept. 14 encounter.

"The board recommended termination of the officer," Bumpers said. "Officer Warren, however, presented his resignation before that action could be taken."

Video footage published by NBC affiliate KPRC showed two officers approaching a man slumped over on a platform bench at Burnett Transit Center, north of downtown Houston.

The station identified the man as Darren Giles, 31.

In the two-and-a-half-minute silent video, Warren can be seen attempting rouse Giles while a second officer looked through a cooler that sat beside him. When Giles stood up, Warren struck him repeatedly for approximately eight seconds.

As Giles writhed on the platform floor — and as the two officers restrained him — Warren struck him two more times.

Giles was charged with resisting arrest and criminal trespass, KPRC reported, though those were later dropped.

The second officer, Daniel Reynoso, will return to duty after additional training, Bumpers said.

"This incident is not reflective of our police force and I will not tolerate inappropriate use of force by officers," she said.

Good ole corrupt Houston and Metro police. Smh. This is one reason why I don't trust cops, they fly off the handle too easily and are not properly trained.

[Andrea]

Cop violently arrests a man for sitting on his own porch while body cam is on


http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article105525491.html

A Greensboro police officer was stripped of his law enforcement credentials last week, after the release of police body camera footage that showed him violently arresting a man for sitting on his own porch.

Police body cameras have been in the news in Charlotte, involving the fatal shooting by a police officer of Keith Lamont Scott.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said Friday night that it will release more than two hours of video footage of the scene of Scott’s shooting, a reversal from the agency’s previous stance.

In a statement, police spokesman Rob Tufano said the department will honor a request from Scott’s family to make public all dashcam and body camera footage that CMPD has obtained at the Sept. 20 shooting.

Police will allow the family to view the footage sometime next week, before providing it to the public, Tufano said. The statement did not specify what day or time.

In the Greensboro case, Dejuan Yourse was waiting for his mother to arrive to let him into his home on June 17, when two officers were dispatched to investigate a possible break-in, the Huffington Post reported.

On the video from a police body camera, Yourse is seen trying to phone his mom so she can speak to the officers. He gives the officers his ID and suggests the officers ask a neighbor to verify that he lives there.

Officer Travis Cole soon places his hands on Yourse’s chest to stop him from walking away, according to the Huffington Post. After Yourse sits back down, Cole takes Yourse’s phone from his hand, throws him to the floor and struggles to handcuff him.. Yourse keeps asking Cole why he’s punching him. When Cole yells, “I’m going to hit you again,” Yourse yells back, “Why?”

The Greensboro City Council voted unanimously last week to strip Cole of his law enforcement credentials. The district attorney refused the council’s request to file criminal charges against the officer, saying he wouldn’t “rehash the same evidence,” the Greensboro News & Record reported.

Police had charged Yourse with resisting arrest and assault on government officials. The charges were dropped when Cole resigned in August. The second officer quit her job last week, the Huffington Post reported.

[Andrea]

‘I Can’t Breathe’: Disturbing Video Shows Father Of Four Begging Guards For Help Before He Died In Jail

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/michael-sabbie-jail-deaths-bi-state-jail-bowie-county_us_57f2ab41e4b024a52d304102?bns

“I can’t breathe.”

Michael Sabbie ― a 35-year-old stay-at-home father of four ― said it after five guards piled on top of him inside the Bi State Jail, a facility that sits directly on the border between Texas and Arkansas and is run by a for-profit company.

“I can’t breathe.” Sabbie ― who packed his kids’ lunches, drove them to and from school, and carted them around to their after-school activities ― said it again after a sixth officer pepper-sprayed him as he lay on the concrete floor.

“I can’t breathe, sir. Please! Please!” Sabbie ― who wrote a Facebook post thanking God for his kids just hours before his arrest ― said it again as guards held him up against a wall outside of the nurse’s station.

“I can’t breathe,” Sabbie said again after he was forced into the shower. “I can’t breathe,” Sabbie repeated, echoing the final words of another black father, 43-year-old Eric Garner, who died in New York in July 2014 as the result of an officer’s illegal chokehold.

A guard threatened to pepper-spray Sabbie again. “I’m sorry,” Sabbie said, hoping to avoid being hit with painful chemical agent a second time. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Then Sabbie collapsed. The guards, paid a starting rate of $10 an hour, apparently thought he was faking it. They took him to a cell.

“Can’t breathe,” Sabbie said as guards removed his handcuffs and left him on the floor of the cell overnight. Sabbie, who at that point had been in custody for roughly 48 hours, was dead by the morning.

The basic details of Sabbie’s death, one of more than 800 jail deaths counted by The Huffington Post in the year after Sandra Bland died in jail on July 13, 2015, wouldn’t normally raise much suspicion. The initial news reports said that Sabbie, who was arrested on a domestic assault charge, was found “unresponsive” on the morning of July 22, 2015, suggesting he died in his sleep. A medical examiner ― noting Sabbie’s obesity and that he had significant heart muscle damage ― deemed his death “natural,” a label that implies it was an unavoidable tragedy. Those circumstances wouldn’t make Sabbie’s death terribly unique: Heart disease killed an average of 226 jail inmates a year from 2000 until 2013, making it the leading cause of jail deaths after suicides.

But calling Sabbie’s death “natural” obscures more than it illuminates, and would hide the failures that very likely could have prevented his death. A quick internal investigation might have absolved jail employees of any wrongdoing. But in Sabbie’s case, there’s video.

“If you just looked at the cause of death, you would think that Michael died of some sort of hypertensive heart condition, and that may be true,” said Erik J. Heipt, one of the attorneys representing the Sabbie family. “But if we didn’t have a video, we’d never know that he had been begging for help due to his shortness of breath and inability to breathe. We’d never know that he said ‘I can’t breathe’ 19 times in the nine minutes that we hear in that video.”

Heipt and his law partner, Edwin Budge, regularly represent families of individuals who have died in jails across the country. But this video is “without a doubt among one of the most outrageous,” Budge said.

“Clearly he’s a person in a state of medical crisis, in medical need, asking for help, and the response to his essentially pleas for medical help is inhumane, which is a term I don’t use lightly,” Budge said.

Preventable deaths being labeled as “natural” is a “common phenomenon” and a “huge problem” in jails across the country, said David C. Fathi, the director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project.

“We often find that someone’s death is characterized as ‘natural causes’ ― maybe it was cancer, maybe it was heart disease,” Fathi said. “But if you look at the medical record, you often find egregious neglect and denial of care. If someone dies of cancer that went totally untreated, is that death from natural causes?”

Sabbie was arrested on July 19, 2015, after getting into an argument with his wife over money, according to a police report. Sabbie’s wife told an officer that he threatened her before getting out of the car and walking away. Another officer located Sabbie, who denied threatening his wife. Due to the alleged threat, Sabbie was arrested for third-degree assault on a household or family member, a misdemeanor.

Sabbie was taken to the Bi State Jail, a facility with 164 beds that housed 134 individuals as of this week. The for-profit company LaSalle Corrections has run the facility since 2013, when a previous company backed out because it reportedly could not turn a profit. Governments pay just $39.50 per day to house inmates at the Bi State lockup and $46.50 per day to place them at the Bowie County facility, a nearby facility LaSalle Corrections also runs. (The company that backed out of the previous contract submitted a competing bid of $56.25 per inmate per day.) Under the contract with Bowie County, LaSalle Corrections absorbs the cost of medical services and also indemnifies the county against any claims from inmates or their families.

The Bowie County facility has agreements with local surrounding counties to house their inmates, which the Bowie County Sheriff has said “helps us to lower the costs” of detaining the county’s own detainees, and jail revenue is “one of the largest portions of Bowie County’s budget,” according to a local news report. A job listing for a position at the Bowie County Correctional Center says pay is $10 per hour, and that the position requires “zero experience as a correctional officer.” As of this July, the facilities were reportedly shorthanded and seeking to fill dozens of positions.

With a population of just 134, the Bi State Jail is one of the smallest jails in the country that had two reported deaths in The Huffington Post’s jail deaths project, which looked at deaths between July 13, 2015, and July 13, 2016. There were two additional deaths at the nearby Bowie County Correctional Center, which has 748 beds and a population of 674 as of this week. Together, the LaSalle facilities had four deaths in a single year, with a joint population of just 808. Other jails that reported four deaths in the year HuffPost examined had populations double, triple and even quadruple that.

Matthew Campbell, who is representing the family of another inmate who died in the Bi State Jail, said the facility is “by far the least secure jail” he’s ever been in. He said he was able to walk in with a briefcase without being searched or showing identification.

“The guy behind the big glass window doesn’t have me sign in, doesn’t ask for ID. There’s no metal detector, he doesn’t check my bag, buzzes me into the attorney meeting room,” Campbell said. “It could have been a briefcase full of cocaine and guns, and I could have left it there in the room and nobody would have been any the wiser.”

At about 3:30 a.m. on July 20, less than 12 hours after his arrest, Sabbie told jail staff he was having difficulty breathing and could not breathe while lying down. A nurse treated him for a low level of oxygen in his blood, and advised him to sit up if he had trouble breathing.

The next day, July 21 at 10:30 a.m., Sabbie was found on the floor of his cell and taken to the nurse’s station. He said once again that he couldn’t breathe and that he believed he had pneumonia. But a nurse cleared him to go back to his cell, which frustrated Sabbie. “So [y’all] aren’t going to help?” he asked, according to police records. He began walking back to his cell, but fell on the floor on his way back and required assistance. The nurse, Tiffany Venable, said she had seen no signs or symptoms of pneumonia during the morning appointment. She told an investigator she completed a medical form for this visit, but believed she placed it in the wrong file.

Sabbie had a court appearance that afternoon, during which he pleaded not guilty and had his bond set at $2,500. A court bailiff said he observed Sabbie “sweating very heavily and coughing.” The judge also saw that Sabbie was having trouble breathing, and suggested Sabbie might have asthma or bronchitis. Sabbie said in court that he had been spitting up blood and needed to go to the hospital.

After the court appearance, Sabbie and a group of other detainees were taken back to the jail at about 4:15 p.m. This is where the video kicks in, and we see that Sabbie stopped to lean against a wall.

Officer Clint Brown walked over to Sabbie. Brown claimed Sabbie wanted to use the phone in the booking desk, but Brown said he had to go back to his cell. He claimed Sabbie turned aggressively toward him, so he grabbed him. Other officers soon assisted.

Lt. Nathaniel Johnson, who earlier in the day had taken Sabbie to the nurse because he had difficulty breathing, pepper-sprayed Sabbie directly in the face, just as he said, “I can’t breathe.”

Venable, the nurse who saw Sabbie earlier in the morning and had been on duty since 5 a.m., witnessed the guards use force against Sabbie, and then evaluated him briefly in her office. She didn’t fill out a form, but said she believed his complaints were a normal reaction to pepper spray.

“Ms. Venable said she wanted to get off work on time because she had to get her daughter to a pitching lesson,” one police report states. “She said she was going to complete one this morning when she came into work but learned that Mr. Sabbie had passed away.”

Heipt, one of the lawyers for the Sabbie family, said they believe that Sabbie had pulmonary edema, or excess fluid in his lungs caused by a heart condition. It’s a medical emergency, but treatable and should have been detected with a proper evaluation, Heipt said. The State Crime Laboratory’s Medical Examiner Division found that Sabbie died of “hypertensive arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease,” and claimed that the altercation “played a minimal role in the decedent’s death, and may not have contributed at all to his death.”

Correctional Officer Simone Nash was charged with keeping an eye on Sabbie overnight. She was required to do cell safety checks on all her pods and cells every 30 minutes, as well as a count four times each shift. Although her records indicated that the guard did those 30-minute checks, she admitted that “not all the checks were done and they were only documented,” according to a Texarkana Police report. Nash admitted she “didn’t consistently enter and check the cells inside the pods during every one of the 30 minute checks” as required, according to the report. During her counts, she said that while Sabbie never responded to her during the counts, she claims she saw him breathing.

LaSalle Corrections employees were still not conducting proper face-to-face observations on July 18, 2016, nearly a year after Sabbie’s death, according to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, which performed the inspection after the July 1, 2016, death of Morgan Angerbauer. Twenty-year-old Angerbauer, whose family is represented by Campbell, was diabetic, and jail nurse Brittany Johnson was arrested in August and charged with negligent homicide in connection with her death. (In a similar case, a former Oklahoma guard was indicted on a federal civil rights charge this week for allegedly ignoring the medical needs of a diabetic detainee who died in 2013. It is rare for corrections officials to face such charges for exhibiting “deliberate indifference” to the medical needs of inmates.)

Heipt, who is also representing the family of a man who died of thirst in a jail run by prominent Donald Trump supporter and Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, said it’s only recently that there has been public attention on jail deaths. Local media outlets sometimes only cover a “sham investigation” conducted by local officials investigating themselves before moving on.

“This is not a tin-foil hat conspiracy; it happens all the time,” Heipt said. “The jail or the county investigates itself, inmates aren’t interviewed, medical records are not reviewed, video recordings are lost or destroyed, and medical examiners who are in charge of determining the cause of death are not given complete information, and so the cause of death is either undetermined, wrong, or doesn’t tell the whole picture.

“The American public has no idea what’s taking place, and because of the lack of public awareness, there’s a corresponding lack of public outrage,” he added. “So politicians on the local and national level have ignored it. Consequently, jails are understaffed and underfunded, money is saved by denying medications and medical care. Funding issues also lead to inexperienced and unqualified corrections officers being hired, as well as a lack of training.”

Sabbie was “cold to the touch” when guards eventually entered his cell, according to documents. The voicemail of the warden, Robert Page, was full when HuffPost reached out for comment this week. He did not respond to a message left with an employee, nor did an official at LaSalle Corrections’ corporate office in Texas.

In a statement, the Sabbie family said they “cannot conceive of how something like this could happen to an American citizen” like Sabbie.

“He was treated as if his life did not matter,” the family said in a statement issued through their lawyers. “Most of all they want justice and accountability and to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”

“I can’t put into words how devastated my children and I are after the loss of Michael,” Sabbie’s wife Teresa said in a statement. “He was my backbone and best friend. My children lost a wonderful father who wanted the best for his family. A piece of our heart is gone, and I pray to God for justice. This was a tragedy that should never have happened.”

The Department of Justice informed Teresa on Aug. 1, 2016, that it would not be prosecuting anyone in connection with her husband’s death.

“After careful consideration, we concluded that the evidence does not establish a prosecutable violation of the federal criminal civil rights statutes,” Paige Fitzgerald, acting principal deputy chief of the criminal section of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, wrote in the letter. “Please accept or [sic] condolences on your lost [sic].”

[*Anya*]

[Andrea]

A black 17-year-old reported his stolen car using LoJack ... and police reportedly arrested him instead

http://www.chron.com/technology/businessinsider/article/A-black-17-year-old-reported-his-stolen-car-using-9397893.php

Race-relations between the police and black citizens is a huge topic of conversation in America right now.

Athletes are refusing to stand for the national anthem in protest over police killings of unarmed black men, the presidential candidates were asked about the issue in their debate on Monday. And on Tuesday, police near San Diego fatally shot another unarmed black man within minutes of responding to a mental-health-related call.

With this subject in mind, we bring you this story of what an ordinary black family can face when they need the police.

Take for example this series of tweets from by Tristan Riddell, who is best known for his Nerd Party network podcasts The Senate Floor and Nerd Nuptial. For his day job, he works as a videographer/video editor at Northwestern University.

"One of my favorite students had his car stolen last night. He's a 17 year old black male. Thought it would be a good idea to call the cops.

Groceries in hand he checks his LoJack app first and can see that its moving down the road. Cops arrive and immediately frisk him.

They ask him if he's on drugs. He tries to tell them that he just wants his car back.

He shows them on his phone exactly where his car is. They don't believe him so they put him in the squad car and take him in. They process him and take his fingerprints.

He gets to call his mom and she raises hell. After a long time they let him go."

They then allow him to go get his car and the window is broken in. It was exactly where the app said."

This never would have happened to me because I'm white. He called the cops asking for help and got treated like a criminal.

Just because he's black and could afford a fancy car."

We reached out to the student who has, so far, not responded to our questions. Riddell has not revealed his identity nor said what city and police department where this occurred, except to reveal that it happened in Illinois.

It seems likely it was in or near Chicago because Northwestern is located in the Chicago suburb of Evanston (though we have no evidence that the incident took place there).

[Andrea]

Phoenix Woman Removes Handcuffs And Hangs Herself Inside Police Van, Authorities Say

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/phoenix-woman-suicide-police-van_us_58009c43e4b06e047594281c?

A woman arrested in Phoenix for domestic violence and assaulting a police officer slipped out of her handcuffs and hung herself with a shoelace from a vent in the back of a police van, authorities said on Thursday.

The woman was rushed to hospital unconscious after the officers driving the van tried to revive her, but she was not expected to survive, a Phoenix police statement said.

It did not give her name or race.

The woman was being taken to jail after being arrested early on Wednesday and was the only person in the back of the van, the statement said. An investigation into the incident had begun.

Last year, Sandra Bland, an African-American woman, was found dead with a trash bag around her neck in her cell at a jail in Waller County, Texas, where she was arrested at a traffic stop. Authorities said her death was a suicide.

The case sparked protests and raised questions about whether she was jailed and mistreated because of her race.

A committee this year recommended sweeping changes for Waller County jails, including better mental health screening.

[Andrea]

New York police officer fatally shoots 66-year-old woman

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/19/us/new-york-police-shoot-women/index.html

A New York City police officer shot and killed a 66-year-old woman while responding to a call at a Bronx apartment, police officials said Wednesday.
Officers went to the Pugsley Avenue apartment around 6 p.m. Tuesday after a neighbor called 911 about an "emotionally disturbed person," Assistant Chief Larry W. Nikunen said.

A sergeant entered the seventh-floor apartment and encountered the woman, who was armed with scissors, but he persuaded her to put them down, Nikunen said.

The woman grabbed a baseball bat and attempted to strike the sergeant, Nikunen said. The officer fired two shots, striking the woman in the torso, he said. She died of her injuries after being taken to Jacobi Medical Center.

The officer was armed with a Taser, but it was not deployed, Nikunen said.
The reason it was not deployed and whether it was necessary for the sergeant to open fire will be a part of the investigation by the New York police's Force Investigation Division, Nikunen said.

The woman was identified as Deborah Danner, said Thomas Antonetti of the Office of the Deputy Commissioner of Public Information. She was a 66-year-old black female who lived alone, Nikunen said.

The officer has not been named, but Nikunen said he is a white male and an eight-year veteran of the police department. Antonetti said the officer is on "modified assignment" that requires he be stripped of his gun and badge pending the investigation.

Nikunen said that the New York police has a history of responding to this apartment for similar disturbances.

"There have been several instances with this individual with similar types of calls," Nikunen said, adding he did not have the details on those earlier incidents.

Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted: "We're determined to get to the bottom of what happened and won't rest until we do."

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. issued a statement calling the shooting "an outrage, especially given the New York Police Department's knowledge of this woman's history and the police officer's possession of a stun gun."

"While I certainly understand the hard work that our police officers undertake to keep the streets of our city safe every single day, I also know what excessive force looks like."

Diaz called on New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark to investigate.

New York City Public Advocate Letitia James tweeted, "Police-involved shooting of woman in Bronx is concerning. We need a swift, thorough, transparent (investigation)."

The killing comes after protests in recent years over fatal police shootings of black people in cities such as Charlotte, North Carolina, and Ferguson, Missouri. Protesters have been demanding justice and an end to police brutality.

Eugene O'Donnell, professor of law and police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told CNN that these situations are "all too common and all too predictable."

But the shooting appeared to be legally justified, he said.

O'Donnell said that ideally, mentally unstable individuals should be protected and overseen to make sure they stay on their medications.

He said the New York Police Department has specially trained officers for these types of incidents, but the officers who initially respond usually don't have that training.

"Anyone who says this was a Taser situation doesn't understand what the police do," he said. "A baseball bat can cause death or serious physical injury, and a Taser is not appropriate in a deadly force situation."

[Andrea]

Agawam fires 3 city cops in connection with 'use of force' incident at police HQs

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/10/agawam_fires_3_city_cops_for.html

Mayor Richard A. Cohen has fired three Agawam officers who were suspended in connection with a "use of force" incident at police headquarters.

City officials have yet to release details of the June 19 incident, which involves allegations that the officers assaulted a male suspect who was in their custody. The officers — Sgt. Anthony Grasso, Edward Connor and John Moccio — were terminated on Wednesday, according to Agawam Police Chief Eric P. Gillis.

"The men and women of the Agawam Police Department serve this community with honor and distinction every day, and both Mayor Cohen and I stand firmly beside them," Gillis said. "We will continue to work hard to maintain a level of trust with our citizens, and we fervently hope that this incident will not interfere with those efforts."

The officers were placed on paid administrative leave in September, pending hearings and the outcomes of internal and external investigations. The case is now in the hands of the district attorney's office, which will determine whether to file criminal charges against the officers.

Attorney John Connor, who represents the officers, said in previous comments to the media that he would appeal any disciplinary actions taken against his clients, who "acted properly" in the incident. Connor could not immediately be reached for comment.

Agawam Mayor Richard Cohen said he takes the allegations "very seriously." The incident, which sparked an internal investigation conducted by an outside agency, is now in the hands of District Attorney Anthony Gulluni.

Legal and law enforcement sources have told The Republican that the officers used excessive force and injured the suspect. The alleged assault was captured by police station cameras, according to officials.

All materials related to the investigation, including audio and video recordings, have been turned over to Hampden District Attorney Anthony D. Gulluni, who will decide whether to prosecute the officers. A spokesman for Gulluni has declined to comment on the probe.

"We fully expect that this matter will continue forward pursuant to law and established provisions within both of the collective bargaining agreements currently in place," Gillis said of the fired officers, all of whom belong to a union.

Agawam hired APD Management, a Tewksbury firm that handles confidential inquiries on behalf of police departments and municipal governments, to conduct an investigation into the matter. APD's findings were among the materials sent to the district attorney's office.

'They acted properly,' says lawyer for Agawam officers accused of excessive force

"We had an opportunity to present evidence, and that evidence is very clear that they acted properly," said John Connor, the attorney representing the Agawam police officers.

[Andrea]

Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy no longer employed after using excessive force during domestic dispute

http://kron4.com/2016/10/20/sonoma-county-sheriffs-deputy-no-longer-employed-after-using-excessive-force-during-domestic-dispute/

A Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy who was deemed to have used excessive force during a “non-criminal domestic argument” in Sonoma Valley last month, is no longer employed with the sheriff’s office, a sheriff’s sergeant said Thursday afternoon.

Deputy Scott Thorne, who was hired as a reserve officer in June 2015 and began working full-time in April, used excessive force with his baton and Taser against a husband during the domestic dispute around 10:30 p.m. on Sept. 24.

Sgt. Spencer Crum said the sheriff’s office is prohibited from saying if Thorne was fired or voluntarily left the force. The Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office and the Santa Rosa Police Department are conducting an independent criminal investigation into Thorne’s use of force, Crum said.

“He had no probable cause for an arrest and used excessive force using his baton and Taser,” Crum said.

“Sheriff’s Administration felt that the actions of the primary deputy (Thorne) were excessive for the circumstances and were in violation of our use of force policy,” Crum said.

The sheriff’s office’s policy specifically states that use of force by deputies must be reasonable and appropriate for every situation, Crum said.

Thorne and deputies Beau Zastrow and Anthony Diehm responded to a domestic dispute call by a neighbor. A woman at the residence opened the front door and the deputies entered the home.

Diehm interviewed the woman and Thorne and Zastrow went to the back of the home where the husband was locked in a bedroom, Crum said.

According to the sheriff’s office’s account of the incident, Thorne forced open the bedroom door when the husband refused to come out. The husband was lying on a bed and Thorne ordered him to stand up but he refused.

The husband pulled away when Thorne grabbed his arm, and Thorne shot the husband with his Taser but it had little effect. The husband sat up and pulled the Taser wires out, and Thorne then struck the man in the leg with his baton.

Zastrow and Thorne tried to restrain the man in bed and Diehm arrived to assist. The man broke free and ran toward the bedroom door. Thorne struck the man several times with his baton and the man fell to the ground where the struggle continued. Diehm shot his Taser to no effect and three deputies were able to handcuff and arrest the man.

The deputies then determined there had been a non-criminal domestic-related argument between the husband and wife. The husband was taken to a hospital for treatment before he was booked in the Sonoma County Jail at 1:12 a.m. Sept. 25 for threatening an officer, resisting and obstructing an officer and battery on an officer. He was released on $10,000 bail at 2:36 a.m.

The Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office informed the sheriff’s office on Oct. 11 it would not file criminal charges against the husband. The sheriff’s office did an internal review of the incident that included reviewing the video from the deputies’ body-worn cameras, Crum said.

The sheriff’s Administration Office then determined Thorne’s actions violated its excessive force policy, Crum said.

“The Sheriff (Steve Freitas) is deeply concerned over the incident that transpired. We are conducting a thorough investigation of all deputies involved and will take prompt, firm and appropriate actions in this matter.

“We have reached out to the victim in this case and offered our sincere apology. We also want to apologize to our community. The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office strives to do our absolute best to provide professional public safety services. This is an isolated incident that we are proactively addressing, and does not reflect the values of the Sheriff’s Office,” Crum said.

Zastrow, who joined the sheriff’s office in September 2013, and Diehm, who started in May 2015, are still on duty. They also are the subject of an internal investigation, Crum said.

“We don’t believe they are a danger to the public,” Crum said.

There were no previous complaints about Thorne before the incident, Crum said.

Sheriff Steve Freitas did not return a call for further comment on the incident late Thursday afternoon.

[Andrea]

Brown Deer officer charged in shooting

http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2016/10/21/brown-deer-officer-charged-shooting/92508848/

A Brown Deer police officer who shot an unarmed man after removing him from a county bus in March has been charged with aggravated battery with use of a dangerous weapon, a felony, according to a criminal complaint.

The man, Manuel L. Burnley Jr., 26, was face down on the ground when Officer Devon Kraemer shot him in the back, according to the complaint issued Friday.

Charges in police shootings are extremely rare in Wisconsin.

In Milwaukee County, just two officers have been charged in fatal shootings in nearly 50 years, according to legislative research conducted in 2014. Only one of those shootings occurred while the officer was on duty. That research did not quantify charges in nonfatal shootings.

Charges are filed so infrequently in part because officers are authorized to use deadly force if they reasonably believe someone poses a threat to officers or to members of the public.

Kraemer, 27, told authorities she shot Burnley "because she feared for her safety and that of her partner," the complaint says.

But an expert retained by the prosecutor's office, Emanuel Kapelsohn, concluded that while Kraemer may have been afraid, that fear was not objectively reasonable.

"It was Kapelsohn's professional opinion that Kraemer's use of deadly force was not consistent with generally accepted standards for use of force in Wisconsin or nationwide," the complaint says.

According to the complaint:

The incident began when the bus driver flagged down the officers in the 8600 block of N. 60th St. because Burnley was arguing with her. Kraemer boarded the bus and told Burnley to get off, but he refused, using vulgar language and displaying a belligerent attitude. He did not threaten anyone on the bus or suggest he had a weapon.

Kraemer and her partner, Michael Leeman, removed Burnley from the bus. As they took him to the ground, they also fell. The two officers rolled Burnley onto his stomach; he struggled as they tried to handcuff him.

"Kraemer stated that she was unable to gain control of Burnley's left arm, and she drew her firearm, and pressed it against Burnley's back," the complaint says. "She then drew it back a short distance, to avoid a malfunction, and fired once, striking Burnley in the back, then immediately re-holstered her firearm."

After he was shot, Burnley asked what happened and heard Leeman respond by saying, "We just shot you" and using a racial slur, according to a document Burnley's attorney filed as a precursor to a lawsuit. Burnley is African-American; the two officers are white.

Burnley was hospitalized for 12 days and lost part of a lung as a result of the shooting. The bullet remains in his body and he is unable to work, according to his attorney, Jonathan Safran.

"Mr. Burnley is lucky to be alive and not paralyzed from being shot," Safran said Friday.

Kraemer has been placed on administrative leave with pay, according to a statement from Brown Deer Police Chief Michael Kass.

"As with any officer-involved shooting, the Brown Deer Police Department recognized that criminal charges were always a possibility," Kass said in a statement. "We fully understand and accept the need for this high level of scrutiny within the criminal justice system."

Milwaukee police conducted the investigation into the shooting at the request of Brown Deer police.

Brown Deer police had referred Burnley to the district attorney's office, requesting charges related to assaulting the two officers, but prosecutors did not charge him.

Kraemer has five years of experience with Brown Deer police and Leeman has two years with the department.

If convicted, Kraemer faces a maximum possible penalty of 20 years in prison and $50,000 in fines. She would not be able to continue working in law enforcement since she would no longer be allowed to carry a gun under federal law.

Kraemer is the second police officer to be criminally charged by the Milwaukee County district attorney's office in as many days. On Thursday, Milwaukee Police Officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown, whose shooting of Sylville Smith prompted riots in the Sherman Park neighborhood, was charged with three felonies and two misdemeanors, including off-duty sexual assault. Smith's death remains under investigation.

The shooting of Burnley isn't the first time Brown Deer police training has been called into question in recent years.

In 2012, Brown Deer police officials asked the state Department of Justice for training on how to handle domestic violence situations.

The request came amid sharp criticism in the wake of a shooting at Azana Salon and Spa that resulted in the deaths of three people and the suicide of the gunman. The shooter, Radcliffe Haughton, and his wife, who was among his victims, lived in Brown Deer. Less than two years before the spa shooting, officers saw Haughton point what appeared to be a rifle at his wife. Officers set up a tactical perimeter, told him he was under arrest and ordered him to surrender. He refused. A supervisor ordered officers to leave the scene 90 minutes into the standoff.

At the time, police experts told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that leaving without making an arrest was a breach of basic police protocol and created a risk to the public.

[Andrea]

‘Hurt Him’

https://www.abqjournal.com/873290/guards-handling-of-problem-inmate-sparks-complaints-from-mdc-medical-staff.html

Jail Sgt. Eric Allen gave the order repeatedly: “Hurt him.”

Correctional officers responded by twisting inmate Joe Ray Barela’s handcuffed wrist as he screamed in pain. The officers described it as “pain compliance” needed to control a belligerent prisoner with a long rap sheet and a history of violence.

But it horrified medical staffers who were trying to assess and treat Barela in the emergency room at the Bernalillo County jail, according to county documents released in response to a Journal request for public records.

One nurse called it torture. Two employees were in tears.

“They won’t stop hurting him,” one counselor told a colleague.

And the orders to “hurt” Barela, they said, interfered with their attempts to assess his medical condition.

They told sheriff’s detectives and a private investigator for the county that they think officers used excessive force on Barela and that the incident fueled tension between medical staff and corrections officers inside the massive jail.

Some medical staffers also said correctional officers tried to intimidate them after the incident.

Their accounts of what happened to Barela on Dec. 18 are outlined in reports prepared by sheriff’s detectives and a private investigator for the county Human Resources Department.

The officers saw the incident much differently. No one used excessive force, they said, and their actions were simply intended to keep everyone safe from an inmate with a history of violence.

Barela, 39 at the time, has been booked 30 times and was being held on charges that included aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, according to a jail report.

“This guy is a decade-long troublemaker in any facility,” jail Lt. Stephen Perkins, head of the correctional officers’ union, said in a Journal interview. “This guy is a problem child.”

Whatever happened, the incident highlights tension between correctional officers and medical personnel inside the Metropolitan Detention Center, one of the 50 largest jails in the country.

Allen acknowledged telling “the civilian staff to keep their opinions and noses out of his and security staff’s business,” the private investigator, Doug Shawn, a retired Albuquerque police officer, wrote in his report.

Andrea: Clink link for rest of article

[*Anya*]

Originally Posted by Andrea

New York police officer fatally shoots 66-year-old woman

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/19/us/new-york-police-shoot-women/index.html

A New York City police officer shot and killed a 66-year-old woman while responding to a call at a Bronx apartment, police officials said Wednesday.
Officers went to the Pugsley Avenue apartment around 6 p.m. Tuesday after a neighbor called 911 about an "emotionally disturbed person," Assistant Chief Larry W. Nikunen said.

A sergeant entered the seventh-floor apartment and encountered the woman, who was armed with scissors, but he persuaded her to put them down, Nikunen said.

The woman grabbed a baseball bat and attempted to strike the sergeant, Nikunen said. The officer fired two shots, striking the woman in the torso, he said. She died of her injuries after being taken to Jacobi Medical Center.

The officer was armed with a Taser, but it was not deployed, Nikunen said.
The reason it was not deployed and whether it was necessary for the sergeant to open fire will be a part of the investigation by the New York police's Force Investigation Division, Nikunen said.

The woman was identified as Deborah Danner, said Thomas Antonetti of the Office of the Deputy Commissioner of Public Information. She was a 66-year-old black female who lived alone, Nikunen said.

The officer has not been named, but Nikunen said he is a white male and an eight-year veteran of the police department. Antonetti said the officer is on "modified assignment" that requires he be stripped of his gun and badge pending the investigation.

Nikunen said that the New York police has a history of responding to this apartment for similar disturbances.

"There have been several instances with this individual with similar types of calls," Nikunen said, adding he did not have the details on those earlier incidents.

Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted: "We're determined to get to the bottom of what happened and won't rest until we do."

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. issued a statement calling the shooting "an outrage, especially given the New York Police Department's knowledge of this woman's history and the police officer's possession of a stun gun."

"While I certainly understand the hard work that our police officers undertake to keep the streets of our city safe every single day, I also know what excessive force looks like."

Diaz called on New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark to investigate.

New York City Public Advocate Letitia James tweeted, "Police-involved shooting of woman in Bronx is concerning. We need a swift, thorough, transparent (investigation)."

The killing comes after protests in recent years over fatal police shootings of black people in cities such as Charlotte, North Carolina, and Ferguson, Missouri. Protesters have been demanding justice and an end to police brutality.

Eugene O'Donnell, professor of law and police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told CNN that these situations are "all too common and all too predictable."

But the shooting appeared to be legally justified, he said.

O'Donnell said that ideally, mentally unstable individuals should be protected and overseen to make sure they stay on their medications.

He said the New York Police Department has specially trained officers for these types of incidents, but the officers who initially respond usually don't have that training.

"Anyone who says this was a Taser situation doesn't understand what the police do," he said. "A baseball bat can cause death or serious physical injury, and a Taser is not appropriate in a deadly force situation."

I am so sure that the 66 year-old woman would have beat the shit out of that younger cop with a baseball bat.

They have specially trained officers to deal with mentally ill people but those aren't the police that respond to a call of an emotionally disturbed individual?

OMFG.

[Andrea]

Police Kill Renee Davis, Pregnant Native Woman

https://www.colorlines.com/articles/police-kill-renee-davis-pregnant-native-woman

Renee Davis was shot and killed by Kings County (Washington) Sheriff’s deputies on Friday (October 21). The 23-year-old Native woman was five months pregnant and struggling with depression. She texted a friend to say that she was “in a bad way,” her foster sister, Danielle Bargala, told the Seattle Times. That person called the police, who went to Davis’ home on Muckleshoot tribal lands. Two of Davis’ three children (ages 2, 3 and 5) were there with her. The oldest child was with a family friend during the shooting.

Officers say that no one answered the door, so they entered the home. “They tried repeatedly to get somebody to come to the door, nobody did. But, they could see the two kids running around inside then house,” King County Sheriff’s Office media relations officer Cindi West told press, per local station KOMO. “The found her in the house and she was armed with a handgun.”

Bargala told the Seattle Times that she doesn’t know if her sister owned a handgun, but that as an avid hunter, she had a hunting rifle. But she does know that her sister was not violent. “It’s really upsetting because it was a wellness check. Obviously, she didn’t come out of it well,” she said.

“My community is confused. We have our own police department in which we know our deputies personally. I never thought this would happen so close to home,” Hunter Vaiese told Heavy.com. “She needed help, but she got bullets. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

Davis’ children were not injured in the shooting and are currently living with relatives. The names of the two involved deputies have not yet been released; they are on paid administrative leave.

[deeds]

Originally Posted by JDeere

Good ole corrupt Houston and Metro police. Smh. This is one reason why I don't trust cops, they fly off the handle too easily and are not properly trained.

hi you...
They know exactly where the kill zones are and there is more than one way to skin a cat.

[Andrea]

Emotionally disturbed man, 49, dies after NYPD sergeant shocked him twice with stun gun in Bronx confrontation

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx/man-critical-condition-cops-taser-bronx-clash-article-1.2855934

A 49-year-old Bronx man who threatened officers with a bottle died Wednesday after an NYPD sergeant used a stun gun to subdue him, police said.

Cops responded to a 911 call around 5:30 p.m. on Mayflower Ave. in Pelham Bay about a man armed with a knife who was “acting violently.”

Three officers and the sergeant confronted the man in a basement apartment of the gray Victorian home. The distraught man menaced them with a glass bottle, police said.

The patrol sergeant used a stun gun on the man, who fell to the ground, but revived moments later and tried to fight with the officers. The sergeant delivered a second blast from the stun gun, police said.

The man went into cardiac arrest, and the cops on the scene performed CPR. Paramedics then took him to Einstein Hospital, where he died at 7:22 p.m., cops said.

The tragic incident comes just 15 days after cops shot and killed Deborah Danner, a 66-year-old woman suffering from schizophrenia, when officers answered a neighbor’s complaint about her behaving “in an irrational manner” in her Bronx apartment building.

The NYPD’s Force Investigation Division was looking into Wednesday’s death and no disciplinary action had been taken against the sergeant, identified by sources as William Melrose, a 13-year veteran working in the 45th Precinct.

Amy Spitalnick, spokeswoman for state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, said members of the office’s Special Investigations and Prosecutions Unit were on the scene to review the incident for possible jurisdiction under a 2015 executive order by Gov. Cuomo.

An upstairs neighbor who only gave his first name, Derrick, said he knew the man and described him as a “real good dude.”

“He’s not an aggressive guy at all, he’s a real good man,” said the 28-year-old neighbor. He said the man was kind to his 5-year-old son.

“He works out in Long Island. He cuts cold cuts — he’s a deli guy,” Derrick said. “He was real good with my son. My son called him ‘Big Buddy.’ ”

In an Oct. 21 press conference following Danner’s death, NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said, “There are times when Tasers aren’t effective, but they are less-than-lethal weapons and we do use them.”

The NYPD has increased the number of Tasers in its arsenal from 670 in 2014 to 1,710 this year, O’Neill said.

[Andrea]

Ariz. police officer placed on leave after violent video surfaces

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/11/17/ariz-police-officer-placed-leave-after-violent-video-surfaces/94009190/

PHOENIX — A Flagstaff police officer has been placed on administrative leave after a video showing him punching a woman in the face surfaced Wednesday on Facebook, according to a police spokesman.

The Flagstaff Police Department "became aware" of the video, which shows Officer Jeff Bonar striking the woman during a Wednesday afternoon arrest, about 7:30 p.m. MT, police Sgt. Cory Runge said in a statement.

"Our agency is very concerned by what is depicted in this video," Runge said. "We are immediately initiating an internal investigation into this incident."

Flagstaff resident Jimmy Sedillo identified the woman in the video as his girlfriend when contacted by The Arizona Republic. He said the pair had received an eviction notice the previous week, and Wednesday was their deadline to leave.

He said officials, including Bonar, came to watch the couple leave and lock up the house. But when Bonar saw Sedillo's girlfriend walk out of the house, he identified her as having a warrant out for her arrest.

“She had a warrant a few weeks ago,” Sedillo said. “He still assumed she had a warrant.”

Sedillo said he and his 3- and 9-year-old children, mother, niece and brother-in-law watched his girlfriend get hit and tackled. His brother-in-law, Danny Paredes, shot the video shared on Facebook.

“It was just shocking,” Paredes said. “I pulled out my camera immediately.”

The video later shows an official who appears to be from the Coconino County Sheriff's Office helping Bonar hold the woman down and arrest her as she cries, "I didn't do anything, I didn't do anything."

Flagstaff police said they would release further details "as the investigation progresses."

[Andrea]

Jail monitor: Mistakes, poor monitoring before 3 inmate deaths

http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/investigations/2016/11/17/jail-monitor-mistakes-poor-monitoring-before-3-inmate-deaths/94042466/

Three deaths at the Milwaukee County Jail all came after mistakes in medical care or potentially poor monitoring of vulnerable inmates, according to a new report issued by a court-ordered monitor of the facility.

The monitor, who is a physician, also found more than one-third of all medical positions at the County Jail and House of Correction remain vacant, an issue he said makes it "extremely difficult" to properly treat inmates.

The findings by the court-appointed monitor, Robert Shansky, are detailed in a report providing new details about the recent spate of deaths at the County Jail. The report reiterates concerns Shansky had in his report from May about Armor Correctional Health Services, the private contractor responsible for medical care at the county's two jails.

Four people have died since April at the County Jail, the downtown facility run by Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. The House of Correction, which is run by the county in Franklin, hasn't had any inmate deaths in that time. Both facilities are staffed with Armor personnel.

Shansky did not directly attribute problems with jail oversight or medical care to any of the four deaths. But in three of the four cases, he questioned whether the inmates were properly screened and monitored after being booked into jail. Shansky did not address the fourth case because it occurred in late October, one week before his visit.

"(The report) still leaves a lot of questions. I think in all of these cases, we don't really have a full picture yet," said Pete Koneazny, litigation director for the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee. The society and the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin represent Milwaukee County inmates who sued the county over medical care in 1996, a lawsuit that resulted in Shansky's appointment to monitor the jails.

The problems identified by Shansky in the deaths reflect larger issues he saw at the jails. He found "substantial delays" in responding to inmates' requests for medical attention, and noted the jails' record-keeping procedures remain out of date.

The Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office and Armor representatives did not respond to requests for comment Thursday. Armor has previously said temporary employees are used to ensure all shifts are filled, even if the employees aren't full-time staffers.

In a statement, county executive spokeswoman Melissa Baldauff said House of Correction and county officials are "actively reviewing this report and will work transparently with Armor and Dr. Shansky to address the issues raised." Baldauff noted Shansky's report often did not specify whether problems were found at the House of Correction, the County Jail, or both facilities. The county will seek clarification on issues specific to the House of Correction, she said.

Mistakes before deaths

Shansky visited the jails two weeks ago. He tours the facilities, reviews medical records and interviews staff twice a year under terms of a settlement in the 1996 lawsuit.

In his report issued this month, Shansky addressed the deaths of three people: Terrill Thomas, 38, who died of profound dehydration in April; a baby who was born, and later died, in a cell in July without any jail staff noticing; and Kristina Fiebrink, 38, whose death in August hasn't been explained.

In Thomas' case, Shansky said a shortage of corrections officers "leaves open to question whether more careful monitoring of him might have altered the outcome." Thomas, who had previously been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had a history of schizophrenia, went days without water after jail staff turned off his access to water, according to inmate accounts.
Terrill Thomas with his 20-year-old son, also named

Terrill Thomas with his 20-year-old son, also named Terrill, at his son's high school graduation in 2014. (Photo: family photo, family photo)

Shansky also found that Armor staff could have more thoroughly and quickly evaluated Thomas' mental health issues after he was booked into jail. Thomas had been in jail for nine days before his death.

The baby's death "raises several questions," Shansky said. The inmate who gave birth, Shadé Swayzer, has said she asked for medical attention prior to giving birth, but a corrections officer laughed off her request. The Sheriff's Office said Swayzer never asked for help.

Nevertheless, Shansky questioned how an inmate could give birth in the jail's special needs unit -- Swayzer had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia -- without any staff noticing.

Shansky wrote that the baby's suspected cause of death was fetal suffocation, though he doesn't specify whether the child suffocated in utero or after birth.

In Fiebrink's case, Shansky's report doesn't specify a cause of death. The Sheriff's Office has not provided any information about the circumstances surrounding her death, and autopsy results have not been released.

Shansky does note that Fiebrink was not started on a preventative detoxification protocol -- she was a known heroin abuser and had been jailed several times in recent years -- or assessed by a medical practitioner before her death.

Before all three deaths, the inmates repeatedly refused medical care or were uncooperative with jail staff.

Persistent issues

The jail deaths all took place amid the backdrop of staffing and patient care issues at the facilities.

In October, 37% of all contractually-required medical care positions were vacant, up from about 30% in May. This was largely due to nursing shortages: 19 of 31 registered nurse positions weren't filled, 15 of 26 licensed practical nurse positions were vacant, and 3 of 4 psychiatric nurse jobs weren't staffed.

"It becomes extremely difficult to provide timely and appropriate services under those constraints," Shansky wrote.

In addition, a study by Armor's own staff of inmate "sick call" requests found some inmates waited weeks for treatment, and a few waited more than a month. Shansky also found "serious quality issues" after reviewing documents that showed how nurses treated sick inmates.

Shansky did write that many of Armor's top administrators at the jails appear serious and dedicated. He also lauded the Sheriff's Office for planning to add 70 corrections officers in January 2017. In July, a Sheriff's Office inspector said 260 jobs were budgeted for the jail, but only 186 were filled.

Koneazny, the lawyer representing inmates, said he has a "low to medium" level of confidence Armor will address problems. He agreed Armor leaders seem "competent and committed," but Armor's failure to fix problems identified in May concerns him.

Baldauff, the county spokeswoman, said staffing vacancies will be scrutinized.

"While shortages in the inmate medical field are not unusual, the seriousness of this issue in Milwaukee County warrants our full attention," she said.

[Andrea]

Days after testifying against officer, deputies beat woman

http://www.local10.com/news/bob-norman/days-after-testifying-against-officer-woman-says-deputies-beat-her

The cellphone video of a Fort Lauderdale police officer pushing down a homeless man and then slapping him while the man sat harmlessly on the pavement at the central bus terminal spread around the world like wildfire.

It also led to criminal charges and a highly publicized trial for Officer Victor Ramirez. At the heart of both the video and trial was a 24-year-old woman named Jessica Mooney. She can be seen in the video, which was shot by her boyfriend at the time, later reached out to the victim, Bruce LeClair, and then testified against Ramirez at his trial with the hope that it would help to stop any similar abuse from happening again.

"All I did was try to help somebody," said Mooney. "I testified because I thought it was the right thing to do, because the cop was wrong."

But just eight days after the trial ended with the officer's acquittal in March, it happened to her. She was badly beaten by Broward sheriff’s deputies at the jail after she was arrested by Fort Lauderdale police. The photos of the aftermath show Mooney -- a 5-foot, two-inch, 120-pound woman –- with a grotesquely swollen face, a gash over her eye, and bruising all over her arms, torso and legs.

Her criminal defense attorney, Scott Hecker, says there can be no good explanation for the beating.

"It never should have happened," he said. "You would think that training would prevent deputies from beating a woman like this. You’re in jail, but it’s supposed to be a safe environment .. it’s supposed to be a controlled situation. Here, unfortunately the people in control were out of control."

When interviewed, Mooney could barely bring herself to look at the photos and broke down after seeing them. She says she has lasting physical ailments from the beating, including occasional seizures.

"I never want to see this happen to anyone again," she said, before breaking into tears. "Can we stop?"

The incident occurred after an admittedly intoxicated Mooney was arrested for failing to pay a restaurant and bar bill at the Quarterdeck in Fort Lauderdale. Police arrested her while she was walking home with her five-month-old baby in tow.

"The allegation was that she handed her child to a stranger to hold the child," he said. "Eventually she was arrested for neglect and petty theft for the money that was owed to the restaurant."

The theft charge was later dropped when it was determined she had in fact paid; a misdemeanor neglect charge remains pending. It was later during fingerprinting at the Broward County Jail that the incident occurred.

According to a State Attorney's Office investigation into the incident, deputies allege Mooney had yelled profanities at them. Mooney said a deputy named Amanda Moreno was verbally abusing her. She said she asked for her name and badge number, but couldn’t see it because her hair was covering it.

"With one finger I went like this," she said, brushing her own hair away. "She smashed my face on the finger printing thing."

Three or four more deputies jumped in.

"I don't know if I lost consciousness or if my body went into shock," she said. "I believe I had a footprint on my rib cage. They split open my eyebrow. The whole inside of my mouth had cuts everywhere, just from being brutalized. I was on the floor."

Moreno and other deputies, however, told prosecutors Mooney didn’t simply brush the deputy’s hair but "violently pulled" it, according to close-out memo authored by Assistant State Attorney Ryan Kelley. Mooney’s attorney, Hecker, says he was allowed to see jail surveillance video that captured parts of the incident, and that what he saw contradicts the deputies’ stories.

"You see her hand go up to the front and go up, it's not a fist and it's not a grabbing motion as the deputies say," said Hecker. "It’s moving away."

He said the video then shows Mooney go down and several deputies standing over her, though the actual beating can’t be seen while Mooney is on the floor.

"What you can see in the video is everybody on top of her," he said. "She's underneath these people. You can see arms move."

He said that once Deputy Moreno was extricated, she went right back towards Mooney.

"It appears as though she's about to kick the defendant and as she lifts her leg she falls," Hecker said. "The "deputy falls on her rear end."

The State Attorney’s Office is refusing to release the video, even though it is part of what is now a closed investigation and would normally be a public record. Prosecutors cite a recent legal decision from Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office that basically opines that government surveillance video footage isn’t public record because its release could compromise government security systems.

Hecker notes that in this case surveillance video paid for by taxpayers meant to safeguard the public is being withheld in a way that could protect deputies from bad behavior. Conversely the release of the video could vindicate those same deputies in the eyes of the public. Hecker said he intends to get a copy of the video through a court order.

Prosecutor Kelley concluded that the video does not contain sufficient evidence to charge Moreno or any other deputy with a crime. He noted in his report that the video shows Moreno going back at Mooney and falling to the ground, but determined that her intent was "unclear." While Mooney suspects that the beating was retribution for her previous testimony, there has been no evidence found to support that is the case.

"It never should have happened," said Hecker. "The only people that were violent in this case were the BSO detention deputies."

[Andrea]

76 gunshot wounds, 0 police cameras, countless questions

http://www.abc10.com/news/local/76-gunshot-wounds-0-police-cameras-countless-questions/354335056?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Jamarion Robinson was a runner.

His mom's house is filled with trophies stretching back to elementary school. You know, the gold, plastic trophies with a runner frozen in time.

In the photos, he's outfitted in a black helmet with yellow and red pads for Tuskegee University. The white lines of the field pass him in a blur as he runs with a football tucked under his arm. He ran his way to player of the year as a freshman. He ran his way into adulthood, surrounded by a loving family.

And he ran from police. Until the day the U.S. Marshals office kicked in the door and shot him 76 times.
draft



Jamarion Robinson was shot 76 times.

Jamarion was killed in August after a series of rapid fire while inside his girlfriend’s East Point apartment. From the first warning shots until it was over, nearly 3 minutes of gunfire was captured on the cell phone of a resident standing nearby.

Investigators have not said how many shots Robinson fired, but the Fulton County medical examiner said he was hit 76 times.

“His head, hands shot off, arms, entire upper and lower torso area, down his thighs, his shins, his feet,” said Robinson.

Community activist Nicole Borden walked through the apartment after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation processed the scene. She believes, as does the family, the use of force was excessive. On the walls you can see the investigator’s markings, counting the number of bullet holes.

“As you’re going up the stairs the numbers keep getting larger. Fifteen, 20 and you start to think like, when are you going to stop counting? I mean, number 68. Can you imagine going to a crime scene and you see number 68 bullet?” asked Borden.

U.S. Marshals said Robinson had a gun. But Borden questions how he could get six bullet wounds – one in the palm of his hand – if he was continuing to hold and fire a weapon.

She also wants to know why it took a private investigator hired by the family to find two bullets fired straight down into the ground, where Robinson’s body was laying.
draft

The Robinson family's private investigator says he found evidence of two bullets fired straight down into the ground, where Robinson’s body was laying.

The GBI is now investigating, but some believe without body cam video to help narrate the events, there’s a key piece of evidence missing.

The events leading to Jamarion Robinson's death were not caught on camera.

U.S. Marshals don’t wear body cameras, even when serving arrest warrants. Marshals are federal agents within the Department of Justice. Even though the DOJ has given more than $20 million in grants to support body camera programs at local police departments, they don’t equip their own law enforcement with them.

11Alive Investigator Rebecca Lindstrom asked for an interview with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to explain why not. The only response she received was a written statement from a spokesperson saying, “The Department of Justice is looking into the use of body cameras and has been consulting with our federal law enforcement components.”

“They have enormous power, they need to be subject to these checks and balances,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The ACLU took the U.S. Border Patrol to court demanding that, in certain situations, officers wear body cameras. The border patrol has started to implement them, slowly. The ACLU says it may take aim at U.S. Marshals next.

“I think it’s a real problem if the federal government is asking and encouraging local police forces to use body cameras, but not its own police forces like the U.S. Marshals when they’re engaged in the same activities.”

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard has launched his own investigation into Robinson’s death to determine if any of the Marshals should face charges.

“If we had body cams, a lot of the issues that have been raised about that case would go away," Howard said. "But that videotape doesn’t exist."

East Point police were at the scene to assist the U.S. Marshals. They have dash cam recording devices, but the department said the officers that day drove the new police cars which did not have cameras installed.

Howard believes that if an agency has the equipment, the community's expectation is that they will use it. He said every law enforcement officers working in the field should now be wearing body cameras - even U.S. Marshals.

“There’s no difference if somebody’s shooting at you, whether it’s a U.S. Marshal or not," Howard said. "And if the U.S. Marshal doesn’t want to wear body cams, then my position is, they shouldn’t be involved in the arrest.”

Jamarion Robinson was a wanted man.

“There’s so much going on now with innocent people being killed at the hands of the people who are supposed to be able to protect and serve us,” Monteria Robinson said.

She considers her 26-year-old son one of those innocent people and has set up a Go Fund me account to try to investigate and hold law enforcement accountable.

Robinson’s mother doesn’t understand why so many law enforcement officers were needed to arrest her son - or why, since police were aware he had recently been diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, Marshals didn’t show up with a mental health professional to assist.

After the fatal shooting, marshals said they went to arrest Robinson at the request of the Gwinnett and Atlanta police departments. They said just a few weeks earlier he had poured gas on the floor beneath his bed and in front of his mother’s bedroom.

According to the arrest warrant, a friend stopped him before anything happened. Robinson’s mom said she called police, not to have him arrested, but to get him mental health assistance.

Atlanta police had their own arrest warrant - this time for allegedly pointing a gun at officers while being confronted at a friend’s apartment complex.

In the past 2 years, Robinson had left a paper trail in courts across metro Atlanta. He pleaded guilty to a series of traffic violations in Gwinnett for driving without a license plate and giving officers a false name, all of the offenses misdemeanors. He was charged in Cobb County with possession of a controlled substance and arraigned in Union City for failing to stop at a stop sign.

His mother says he thought his problems were behind him and he was preparing to return back to school to finish his biology degree. He had already alerted his football coach about his return.

Jamarion Robinson isn't alone.

This isn’t the first time an arrest by U.S. Marshals has raised questions. A year earlier, Michael Smashey was killed as U.S. Marshals tried to arrest him in Cobb County. Sheriff’s deputies on the scene had cameras, but when Lindstrom asked to see the video, she was told it didn’t exist.

Lindstrom learned officers intentionally didn’t use them. In Cobb County, the sheriff’s policy allows deputies to turn off their cameras “when undercover agents such as federal marshals and narcotics agents may be recorded.”

Simon Araya, who helps create the technology behind Utility’s Body Worn cameras, said it’s not his place to set policy. But he said his company’s redaction software can conceal the voice or physical identity of an undercover officer in a matter of minutes.

“It doesn’t matter where he is in the video. The software will keep looking for him and when he comes back into view it will redact him,” Araya said while demonstrating the technology.

Jamarion Robinson's family is pushing for change.

Robinson doesn’t know what happened inside the apartment where her son died, but she does know something needs to change.

“Someone has to eventually stand up and that’s going to be the Robinson family," she said. "Someone has to stand up and say no more. And that’s going to be the Robinson family."

[Andrea]

Video shows police hitting teen protester with baton

http://www.abc10.com/news/local/stockton/video-shows-police-hitting-teen-protester-with-baton/355472143?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

A protest in Stockton turned violent when an officer used his baton to hit a 16-year-old girl.

ABC10 News recently received cellphone video from the protest, which took place October 12. Protesters were demanding that the Stockton Police Department release body camera footage related to the death of Colby Friday, who was killed in an officer-involved shooting.

Tamaya Slaughter, the 16-year-old protester, said police were trying to stop protesters from moving off the sidewalk and crossing the street.

“I guess he got mad, I guess people were yelling,” Slaughter said. “I was standing right there, and he hit me.”

In the cellphone video, an officer is seen turning his baton and jamming it into the crowd. Slaughter can be heard screaming off-camera.

Soon after that, Slaughter was arrested for battery of an officer and resisting arrest – charges that are still pending. Stockton Police Department spokesman Joseph Silva told ABC10 News that the officer was spat on by Slaughter prior to using his baton.

Slaughter denies spitting on the officer.

“I do not recall. I was yelling out of anger. If it was, it wasn’t intentional,” Slaughter said.

Dionne Smith Downs, a friend of Slaughter’s mother, filmed the cellphone video. She said they want police body camera video to be released.

“Show us! We’ve been asking for cameras. Every other city is playing videos. Every other thing other cities have done – they show videos. Why is Stockton the only city that never wants to give you nothing?” Smith Downs asked.

Silva said that the Mobile Field Force, the specialized unit seen in the video, trains regularly on crowd management and uses only reasonable and necessary force.

“Since the suspect is still in the court process pending charges of battery on an officer and resisting arrest, we cannot release any evidentiary video footage. Just like in any use of force case, an administrative review was completed and the officer’s actions were found to be within Department policy,” Silva said.

Yolanda Huang, Slaughter’s attorney, is asking for charges to be dropped against her client.

“The Stockton Police have a history of excessive force against unarmed citizens, particularly against people of color. This latest incident where Stockton police attacked black children, who were peacefully exercising their first amendment rights by protesting the latest police shooting of an unarmed civilian, Colby Friday, is egregious and unacceptable,” Huang said.