US Police Brutality

[outsider]

California cops go on trial for beating mentally ill homeless man to death:
http://rt.com/usa/california-police-kelly-thomas-608/

And despite the horrendous video evidence, they are found 'Not Guilty':

Kelly Thomas Trial: People stunned by verdicts:
http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/01/14/41584/dozens-gather-for-kelly-thom as-vigil-following-off/

[outsider]

And the British Police record:

'It's all the other police deaths that should really trouble our politicians

Almost a thousand people have died in police custody since 1990 in Britain, and only one police officer has faced any sort of professional sanction':
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/01/its-all-other-police-deat hs-should-really-trouble-our-politicians

'...One thousand, four hundred and seventy six people have died following police contact in Britain, and almost a thousand of them in police custody since 1990 in Britain, and, at the time of writing, only one police officer has faced any sort of professional sanction for any of those deaths: PC Simon Harwood, who was found not guilty of killing Iain Tomlinson in 2012....'

[fish5133]

Came across the Kelly Thomas case a few months back whilst researching schizophrenia. I wonder how much its a test to see how docile and compliant US citzens are as they edge further into a police state and how much is to instill fear into the populace.

Feel so much for the dad who watched and listened to his sons cries and wasnt there when his sick son needed him. You wouldnt have blamed him for shooting the b****** killing his son.

[outsider]

[fish5133]

agree with you there outsider. I think any "forgiveness" requires confession of guilt, and proper repentance from the offender and where possible restitution. Will need one hell of a wake up call for any of those cops to come to that point.

[outsider]

Cops Gun Down Unarmed Journalist's Career:
By Greg Palast, Reader Supported News 05 August 15
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/31671-cops-gun-down-una rmed-journalists-career

'...The police source said the recording and other info proved Rall was lying. That the tape proved that Rall had never been handcuffed – nor, as Rall wrote in his column, was there a group of onlookers complaining about the cop’s overkill.

In other words, ‘they’ said and the Timesaccepted that Rall just made up the whole handcuff-and-crowd thing to smear the LAPD. On that basis, LA Times editor Nick Goldberg printed and signed a big-splash editorial saying, in effect, Rall had committed the unpardonable sin of fabricating a story – and Rall was fired....'

'... This, of course, would end Rall’s career as a syndicated newspaper columnist and cartoonist.

And I was going to have to fire Rall too. Rall is a journalism fellow of the Palast Investigative Fund, the not-for-profit foundation that backs our work. If the charges were true, I wouldn’t hesitate to fire Rall’s lying ass – but only after I break his pen and cut off his fingers.

I demanded a copy of the recording for our audio experts to review – and asked Rall to do the same.

Oh, mama! To my surprise – and Rall’s glee – the crowd that he had allegedly fantasized about suddenly came alive – with three women shouting, “Why’d you handcuff him?” and “Take off his handcuffs!”– the handcuffs that were supposedly fabricated by Rall. (One woman helpfully suggested to the officer, “Don’t forget to ride his ***hole!”)

Listen to it yourself, or read the true transcript. Check this against the LAPD’s incomplete transcript.

As an investigative reporter, I was astonished that the LA Times did not even bother to do an independent analysis of the tape. Rall told me that a Times reporter, Paul Pringle, told him the Timessimply accepted the recording transcript as truthful because it came from the LAPD.

And the LAPD hates hates hates Rall.

I can’t blame them, given Rall’s reports and caustic drawings – the truth hurts. The LA police union wrote that it “applauds [the] LA Times firing of cartoonist Rall,” whose drawings drew blood from the police force infamous for its gang-style beating of the handcuffed Rodney King.

Rall said that reporter Pringle told him that, to bolster their case against Rall, the LAPD source said that the arresting cop, Will Durr, never used handcuffs in petty violation stops. However, by coincidence, a news report about that very same cop, Durr, handcuffing a driver on a routine traffic stop appeared in … The LA Times.

Oops!

My calls to the Times’“investigative reporter” Pringle went unanswered. LA Times opinion editor Nicolas Goldberg, whom I know and have long respected, said he was not authorized not go on record to defend his paper. The smell of panic in the Times’ executive suite is getting stronger.

So I called the LAPD. Did they drop the garbled tape and false transcript on their critic? Oddly, spokesman Officer Mike Lopez, who knew the story well, could not confirm the LAPD was the source. Then was it stolen from official police files?

Would the LAPD conduct an internal affairs investigation of the theft or misuse of confidential police files?

Ironically, the LA Times is the biggest metropolitan daily in the USA with the guts to print Rall – and even pick up a Palast story or two. Clearly, the heat from The Heat is on. I really do hope that, in light of this new information, the paper will do the right thing and retract their statement.

Whatever the original justification for the Times’ printed attack, to let it stand uncorrected now, in light of the new uncontroverted evidence, would violate core standards of journalistic ethics.

As for the Palast Fund, with the evidence now in hand, we will fight this attack on our journalist.

And, if the Times won’t carry Rall’s reports, GregPalast.com will. Sign up here and get his reports and ’toons free of charge.....'

(More, and cartoons, in the link)

[outsider]

Slave Catchers in Pasadena: The Brutal Beating of Donovan Gardner:
http://www.countercurrents.org/print.html

It seems no matter how many cases like this are caught on camera, and of course the majority that don't, nothing happens to the cops.

Imagine the furore if it was Assad's police doing the beating!!

[outsider]

‘License to brutalize’: US cop slamming black student in South Carolina:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpMfS9Qx7bg&feature=em-uploademail

It just goes on and on. That smarmy git Obomba makes me sick; he, like G. W. Bush, is a completely illegitimate President: Obomba has zero proof he was born in US (hardly surprising, as he wasn't) and both
Bush's 'elections' were stolen.
Get back to 'Man's Country' and play with your 'buddy' Rahm Emanuel, you sick 'Uncle Tom'!

[fish5133]

Is it the uniform and training that turns them into thugs or does the job just attract them

Frail Indian grandfather out for a morning walk and cant speak much English attacked by US cops and body slammed into ground breaking his neck and back.

Makes me so ffffin angry


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i60D6co_soc

[outsider]

Finally..... At long last, without further ado: Feds will track police shootings:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Finally---At-long-last-by-Daily-Kos-A rmed-Police-Killing-People_Black-Lives-Matter-151129-661.html

'


Hundreds of Deaths Later, the Feds Will Finally Start Tracking Police Shootings

In separate announcements, the FBI and the Department of Justice say they'll create programs to monitor police-involved shootings at the federal level. Law enforcement agencies are tasked with tallying their own officer-involved shootings, but after the officer-involved death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, it came to light that no government agency maintains a complete database of the national numbers.

On Wednesday, FBI Director James B. Comey called it "embarrassing" and "ridiculous" that up until very recently, officials had made no concerted effort to track the sort of violence that has inspired national protests and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

-- -- -- -- --

On Monday, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch made a similar declaration, saying the Department of Justice will create an open-source system that will track the number of people killed by police and incorporate data on nonfatal shootings, civilian deaths while in police custody, and use of force by law enforcement. Calling the data "vital," she said the absence of a consistent set of standards "makes it hard to see these trends, and that's why it is so important to focus on these [numbers]."

Of course I applaud this but let's see how this pans out. There are apparently stylistic differences in the approach to counting when cops use too much force to do their job.

In the absence of reliable government statistics, journalists have picked up the slack by launching their own public Internet databases to track deadly shootings and even provide geographic and demographic context about each of the people killed. Still, there are discrepancies among the databases. The Washington Post puts the number of people fatally shot by police this year at 759; The Guardian puts the number at 891.

We should have been tracking this decades ago, like we need to have been tracking gun deaths and such, but 'some' don't want us to have hard data because information is power and they like things like they are RIGHT NOW.'

[outsider]

Abuse Charges Against a Former Cop Are Disturbing–as Is the Lack of Media Interest:
http://fair.org/home/abuse-charges-against-a-former-cop-are-disturbing -as-is-the-lack-of-media-interest/

'Daniel Holtzclaw is a former Oklahoma City police officer now standing trial on 36 counts, including rape, sexual battery and stalking. Twelve women and one 17-year-old girl have come forward, saying Holtzclaw assaulted them while on patrol. Most of the victims were black, poor and embroiled in the criminal justice system for things like prostitution and drug use—a precarious state Holtzclaw allegedly used to threaten and coerce them.

As the 17-year-old put it in her testimony, “What am I going to do? Call the cops? He was a cop.”

The alleged crimes are disturbing; so, too, the evident lack of media interest. Outside of Oklahoma, the case has so far garnered little mainstream attention. A Nexis search indicates neither the New York Times nor Washington Post have printed any original reporting; nor has broadcast network news addressed a story that brings together emergent questions of police violence and rape culture.

An Associated Press investigation showed around 1,000 police officers fired over a six-year period for so-called sex crimes, including rape—certainly an undercount of abusive cops, given that it only includes those who actually lost their badges. The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, which collects data on police, doesn’t track officer arrests, and states aren’t required to collect or share that information.

Holtzclaw evidently selected his victims because he believed no one would care about them. Media shouldn’t prove him right.'

Janine Jackson is the program director of FAIR and the host of CounterSpin.

[outsider]

How reliable are police reports? It took a year to make the footage public:
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/bad-guys-1/how-reliable-are-police- reports-.html

Latest: 'Chicago police officer charged in Laquan McDonald shooting posts bond, leaves jail':
http://abc7chicago.com/news/jason-van-dyke-posts-bond-leaves-jail/1103 665/

'CHICAGO (WLS) --
After viewing the police dash cam video tape privately and in open court, a judge set bail at $1.5 million for Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago police officer charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Laquan McDonald, 17. Van Dyke posted bond and was released from jail shortly after 5 p.m. Monday.

Van Dyke's family posted the $150,000 bond, 10 percent of the bail amount. He was met at Cook County Jail by his father. He said nothing as he walked out of the jail to his car, despite a significant media presence. He is due back in court for a status hearing on Dec. 18.

In court, Van Dyke wore a brown Cook County Jail jumpsuit, his hands and feet shackled as he was surrounded by several sheriff's deputies. There was no expression on his face when his no bond status was lifted.

"He is prepared to defend himself," said Dan Herbert, Van Dyke's attorney. "He is very scared about the consequences that he's facing, he's concerned for his wife and his children, but he is handling it like a professional and he is ready to move on and take this step by step."

Van Dyke has been in jail since last week, when he was charged with first-degree murder after shooting McDonald 16 times in October 2014. He is the first Chicago police officer in decades to be charged with first-degree murder.

There is no disagreement that Van Dyke, 37, fired the shots seen on the dash cam video. At issue is whether he feared for his life. His supporters and especially his union, the Fraternal Order of Police, say there is more to this case than the videotape.

"Prior to the engagement of the first shots fired, the shoulders square off to the officer with knife in his right hand," said Dean Angelo, President of the Fraternal Order of Police.

State's Attorney Anita Alvarez did not comment on the bond hearing. She is facing harsh criticism for the delay in filing charges in McDonald's death, and then only doing so on the eve of the video's release. She responded with a statement that reads:

I will not be bullied by politicians who do not have a full understanding of the facts of this investigation. I offer no apologies for enlisting the FBI to investigate Laquan's murder because obviously the Chicago Police Department could not investigate themselves in this case. And I certainly do not apologize for conducting a meticulous and thorough investigation to build the strongest possible First Degree Murder case against Officer Van Dyke.

GRAPHIC VIDEO: Click here to watch the full, 6-minute, unedited video as released by the Chicago Police Department.

Angelo said that he is concerned not only for Van Dyke's safety but for the safety of all uniformed police officers in the city. He is furious that charges were dismissed for a protester who allegedly hit a police officer during the demonstrations immediately following the release of the dash cam video.

"Someone walks out of felony bond court that punches a police officer because of a phone call that is made, or because someone felt it was the right thing to do for community peace," Angelo said. "But that is unprecedented."

A prayer vigil was held outside Chicago Police Headquarters at 35th and Michigan on Monday night. Some 200 protesters led by a group of ministers framed the handling of the McDonald case in moral terms.

"They didn't release the video for 400 days, and they have a moral obligation to do that," said Shawn Casselberry, a protester.

"McCarthy needs to be fired. And as a taxpayer, this building needs to be closed," protester Jedidiah Brown said as he attempted to chain the doors of the front entrance of police headquarters.

Within moments, officers rushed in and preventing him from doing so. Fellow protesters were at his side during a tense face-to-face standoff with police. Brown eventually walked away and was not arrested.

Protests have been ongoing since the release of the video and announcement of charges for Van Dyke on Tuesday, Nov. 24, and demonstrators were present at the courthouse.

Protesters marched around City Hall Monday afternoon holding signs and pushing coffins while changing "16 shots!" Monday afternoon. NAACP leaders joined local clergy and others to call for police reform in Chicago. After speaking with media, protesters linked arms and knelt in the street while singing "We Shall Overcome," blocking traffic. Chicago police arrested at least 8 of those protesters peacefully.

Protestors marched on Michigan Avenue on Black Friday, which is one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Organizers said they plan to protest 16 days, one for each time the teenager was shot.

PHOTOS: PROTESTERS MARCH TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY AFTER VIDEO RELEASE '

'Chicago agrees to pay $5.5m to victims of police torture in 1970s and 80s':
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/06/chicago-police-torture- victims-deal

'.....He was convicted in 2010 of obstruction of justice and perjury, in relation to a civil lawsuit alleging that he tortured citizens. He subsequently served four and a half years in prison before being released in 2014, and continues to draw a police pension.....'

The police Commander was NEVER charged with torture, and is still defiant.