The Warrior cops are out of control

[Trill Clinton]

[boutons_deux]

Corrupt Tulsa Sheriff Stanley Glanz indicted, resigns immediately to avoid termination

It was Sheriff Stanley Glanz who appointed his booster and friend, senior citizen Bob Bates, as a Deputy Sheriff. Bob Bates then shot and killed an unarmed father, Eric Harris, during a rather routine arrest.

On its face, the police murder of Eric Harris, a 44-year-old father in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was wrong. Surrounded by police, Harris had surrendered and was on the ground when Bob Bates, a deputy, claims to have accidentally shot him with a handgun instead of his Taser. For what he claimed was a mistake, Bates was charged with second-degree manslaughter.

With no other details, that story was bad. But then the video was released showing Harris nervously gasping for air, screaming that he couldn't breathe, and asking why he was shotAnother officer, Joe Byars, tells him, " your breath."

Not only is Bates a fake volunteer police officer (Tulsa calls them "reserve deputies"), it turns out Bates was lavishing the department with international cruises to the Bahamas and Mexico, took regular fishing trips with the lead sheriff, Stanley Glanz, and was also chairmanof the sheriff's recent campaign.

“Bob Bates came on board because he had all this money,” one former reserve deputy said, adding that the sheriff and other higher-ups would “go on these cruises in the Bahamas and in Mexico all the time.”“[Bates] foots the bill,” the deputy added. “The sheriff just gave him free rein because he was treating him right. He bought his way into this position.”

Another former full-time deputy said Bates was “getting glad-handed” around the office because of his wealth.

“This is your typical Southern good ol’ boys system,” he said, adding that before the shooting Bates planned to take Glanz on a fishing trip to Florida.

Supervisors at the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office were ordered to falsify a reserve deputy’s training records, giving him credit for field training he never took and firearms certifications he should not have received, sources told the Tulsa World.

At least three of reserve deputy Robert Bates’ supervisors were transferred after refusing to sign off on his state-required training, multiple sources speaking on condition of anonymity told the World.

Now Sheriff Stanley Glanz, who went on fishing trips and international cruises paid for by Bates,is claiming he can't find the paperwork verifying the certification Bates was required to have in order to be out with officers the day he killed Harris.

This isn't just disorganization.

This scandal cost Harris his life. It's increasingly clear that Bates, who also purchased police vehicles for the department, was given so much freedom because of the gifts he showered on the the law enforcement agency. He he felt like he could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Beyond being 73 years old, he had no business even attempting to Taser a subdued Harris—never mind shoot and kill him.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/0...8Daily+Kos%29#

[boutons_deux]

Video: Suburban Police Harass Black Family, Call Them Disgusting Racial Slur

In Montgomery, Illinois, about 45 minutes outside of Chicago, two police officers have been caught on camera targeting, harassing, assaulting, and wrongfully arresting an African American family in the overwhelmingly white town—including calling the family a "bunch of ing ******s."

But they were fired, right? Because this would be damning evidence of racial bias unfit for officers of the law, right?

Nah. Not even close. The officers were given a three-day suspension.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-pol...ng-racial-slur

[boutons_deux]

Delaware Cops Beat Mentally Ill Man When His Quadriplegic Wife Was Unable to Follow Order to Stand Up

Nephews told police their aunt was disabled before they entered the back bedroom — but officers dismissed their claims.

The Rehoboth Beach couple said state police found Ruther Hayes, a disabled veteran who takes medication for schizophrenia, giving a sponge bath to his wife, Lisa, when they burst into her mother’s home June 30, 2014, looking for two relatives,

Officers with the Special Operations Response Team found the disabled couple, who were staying with Lisa Hayes’ mother for two weeks while their daughter attended an ice skating camp, in a back bedroom of the home, according to a lawsuit.

Five family members had already told police that Lisa Hayes, a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy, was unable to use her legs, and the lawsuit claims officers should have seen her wheelchair in the bedroom where her husband bathed her.

But state troopers pointed their guns at the disabled woman and “shouted at her to do that which she could not: stand up,” the lawsuit claims.

Ruther Hayes tried to cover his partially nude wife with a sheet, but the lawsuit shows that police shoved him to the ground and repeatedly punched him before shocking the mentally ill man twice with a stun gun.

State police detained Ruther Hayes and charged him resisting arrest, although the charge was later dropped.

Ruther Hayes told the officers he was a disabled veteran and showed his military ID before trying to lay a sheet over his wife, who was naked from the waist down.

That’s when police grabbed his arms and began to punch him repeatedly.

“Because Mr. Hayes (a disabled veteran) did not immediately fall, an (officer) said, ‘He must have been well trained,’”

Another officer shocked Ruther Hayes on the shoulder, and he fell to the ground and bloodied his nose, but officers continued to beat him and stunned him a second time.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-pol...-unable-follow

[boutons_deux]

Washington State Considers Ending the 'Virtual License to Kill' Given to the Police

The law from 1986 assumes that officers who kill, act in good faith unless “evil intent” can be proven.

Prosecutors from all of Washington State’s 39 counties will meet this week to consider possible changes to that state’s law regarding lethal force by police, which enacts a virtually impregnable wall of “blue privilege” around officers who kill while on duty.

Enacted in 1986 with strong support from police unions, RCW 9A.16.040, which addresses “Justifiable homicide or use of deadly force” by a police officer, assumes that officers who kill, act in good faith unless “evil intent” can be proven.

Jamitha Burley of Amnesty International describes the Washington statute as “the most egregious” law of its kind in the United States. Attorney Jeff Robinson, who directs the Washington ACLU’s Center for Justice, believes that the statute is “virtually a license to kill.”

King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg observes that officers who use lethal force in Washington are protected by an “almost perfect defense” – not merely the “qualified immunity” routinely invoked by police everywhere, but something closer to absolute impunity.

Within hours of the victim’s death, Police Chief Jim Nicks told the media that Zehm had “lunged” at Thompson, thereby threatening his life. Other officers claimed that Zhem had a prior arrest for assaulting an officer. Both claims were conscious, deliberate lies. Two weeks later, Detective Terry Ferguson, who “investigated” the incident for the Spokane PD, filed a report claiming that none of the seven officers who assaulted Zehm committed a crime.

Detective Ferguson had little time to investigate what was done to Zehm, because she was too busy investigating the victim. She persuaded a judge to issue warrants to pry into every aspect of Zehm’s medical, employment, and personal history, on the pretext that the deceased was suspected of “assaulting a police officer.”

This was actually an unsuccessful effort to exhume something – anything – that could be used to denigrate the victim. (It’s worth remembering that officer-involved deaths are usually investigated as “suspected assaults on law enforcement,” rather than as suspected criminal homicides.)

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-pol...l-given-police

[boutons_deux]

Florida police officers fired after rupturing man’s spleen and leaving him screaming in pain for 2 hours


http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/flor...e+Raw+Story%29

just a few bad apples, the rest the police are angelic

[Quetzal-X]

Mother ing uncaged zoo animals

[boutons_deux]

Alabama cops use pepper spray to punish kids for talking back — but judge won’t make them stop

A federal judge won’t stop an Alabama school district from punishing students with pepper spray for minor offenses, but he ordered school resource officers to come up with a new policy for using the nonlethal devices.U.S. District Court Judge Abdul Kallon ruled Wednesday that six Birmingham students sprayed by SROs with Freeze+P during fights were en led to a total of $40,000 in excessive force claims, reported AL.com.

The Southern Poverty Law Center — which filed a federal lawsuit five years ago against the school district, the police chief and six SROs — claimed police used chemical irritant 110 times on 300 students, most of whom were black.

More than 1,200 other students in the predominantly black school district were also exposed to pepper spray during those incidents, the SLPC reported.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/alab...e+Raw+Story%29

[SpursforSix]

Alabama cops use pepper spray to punish kids for talking back — but judge won’t make them stop

A federal judge won’t stop an Alabama school district from punishing students with pepper spray for minor offenses, but he ordered school resource officers to come up with a new policy for using the nonlethal devices.U.S. District Court Judge Abdul Kallon ruled Wednesday that six Birmingham students sprayed by SROs with Freeze+P during fights were en led to a total of $40,000 in excessive force claims, reported AL.com.

The Southern Poverty Law Center — which filed a federal lawsuit five years ago against the school district, the police chief and six SROs — claimed police used chemical irritant 110 times on 300 students, most of whom were black.

More than 1,200 other students in the predominantly black school district were also exposed to pepper spray during those incidents, the SLPC reported.

what I'm seeing is that black students are more unruly than white students and can't be controlled by normal methods. But I think I already gathered this from the thousand of videos of black students wilding in class.
But thanks for corroborating.

[boutons_deux]

The Prominence and Plight Of Girls in the Juvenile Justice System


The number of juveniles in the nation’s criminal justice system has been in decline for years. California and New York have closed some of their largest and most troubled juvenile detention facilities. Missouri has recently been credited with doing a better job of caring for its most troubled children, further limiting the state’s population of teens in punitive settings.

But a recent report by researchers has highlighted what they call a disturbing trend: the prominence and plight of girls in the juvenile justice system.

In 1992, according to the report, Gender Injustice, girls made up 20 percent of the children arrested in the U.S. In 2012, girls accounted for 29 percent of children arrested, a near 50 percent increase. The percentage of girls in the population of children sent to formal detention facilities grew similarly over those years.

The authors of the report, Francine Sherman, a professor at Boston College Law School, and Annie Balck, a lawyer formerly with the Children’s Law Center in Washington, D.C., explain the trend by citing the unintended consequences of a crackdown on domestic violence as well as the failures of reform efforts to address the specific needs of girls.

Girls in the juvenile justice system, they argue, are far more likely to have suffered a range of trauma at home before they wind up arrested. Indeed, girls are 4.4 times more likely than boys to have been sexually abused prior to their brushes with the law.

“In every category, girls in the juvenile justice system find themselves there having experienced more adversity than boys,” said Sherman, whose report was done in partnership with The National Crittenton Foundation. The foundation says that it is dedicated to the health and security of girls and young women across the country.

http://www.propublica.org/article/the-prominence-and-plight-of-girls-in-the-juvenile-justice-system?utm_source=et&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign =dailynewsletter&utm_content=&utm_name=

[boutons_deux]

what I'm seeing

you got in you eyes

[SpursforSix]

you got in you eyes

no...just tears for the pepper sprayed innocent black children

[boutons_deux]

Dept Says Cop Followed Procedure When He Mistook a 70-Yo Man’s Stroke for DUI and Beat Him

“He had my arm twisted behind my back. I said it was hurting and he said, ‘I’ll break your arm.'”

Police refuse to investigate an off-duty officer of using excessive force after mistaking an elderly stroke victim for a drunk driver. Immediately after throwing a 70-year-old man out of his truck, the cop restrained him on the ground by pressing his knee into a blocked artery on the side of the elderly man’s neck. Although he repeatedly informed the officer that he was suffering from a stroke, the enraged cop continued to manhandle him until other officers finally arrived.

While driving to Walmart around 6 p.m. on Sunday, 70-year-old James Miller began feeling dizzy and ill before veering off the road and accidentally hitting a house with his pick-up truck. Instead of correctly reading the situation, off-duty Columbia police Sgt. Scott Hedrick ran out of the house and immediately pulled Miller out of the vehicle. After slamming the elderly man to the ground, Hedrick pressed his knee into a blocked artery on the right side of Miller’s neck.

Miller’s abuse is hardly an isolated incident.

In May we reported the story of officer Shaun Jergens who mistook a man’s medical distress for “non-compliance” and subsequently pepper-spray, tasered, and assaulted him.

Last year, San Antonio police severely beat a man after mistaking his diabetic attack as drunkenness.

The list goes on.

http://www.alternet.org/civil-libert...i-and-beat-him

[boutons_deux]

'You're My Favorite Victim' Woman Reports Rape to NYPD, Cops Show Up and Sexually Assault Her


http://www.alternet.org/civil-libert...ly-assault-her

[boutons_deux]

The Phantom Waistband Maneuver: When Police Shoot Unarmed Black Men

For decades, the phantom firearm grab has served as a virtually unimpeachable excuse when cops shoot unarmed citizens, a companion to the “furtive movement” in the police-shooting playbook. How often has the waistband reach been cited? It’s impossible to say. U.S. law enforcers don’t even count their shootings, let alone tabulate cir stances.

But anecdotal evidence strongly indicates that most victims of phantom-reach shootings are black men or boys. And new research that builds on the venerable scientific concept of “affective realism” suggests an explanation that springs from a stereotype: Cops may “see” guns that don’t exist because their experiences convince them that an African American male they perceive to be an adversary is likely to be armed.

As psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett and her associate Jolie Wormwood put it recently in a New York Times op-ed, “If you are in a part of town with a high crime rate, your brain may well predict a weapon.”

But it does, if you trust the police accounts that crop up with regularity. Most recently:

• On Sept. 23, police in Wilmington, Del., shot and killed a wheelchair-bound man, Jeremy McDole, 28, after they said he “reached for his waistband.” Police say McDole was armed and suicidal, though his kin dispute that. Video of the shooting has prompted sharp criticism of the police actions. Some have called for a federal investigation [5].
• On Sept. 12, police in Huntsville, Ala., said officers shot a suspected car thief in the shoulder, as “it appeared” the man “was attempting to pull a weapon from his waistband as he ran towards the officers.” No gun was found. The victim of the shooting was treated at a hospital for his injury and sent to jail. More than two weeks after the shooting, Huntsville authorities refused to release anything but cursory details [6], citing an ongoing administrative review.
• On Aug. 17, police in San Jose, Calif., used the waistband-reach explanation after officers shot and killed a man, a suspect in an earlier homicide who was said to be armed. A day later, after “we interviewed all the witnesses,” police admitted [7] that the dead man had not been armed and was shot in the back while running away.

Questionable police shootings with waistband citations have occurred so regularly in the past five years that journalists have begun aggregating them [8]. The growing list includes three waistband-reach police shootings in an 11-month period in San Diego in 2013-14, as well as disturbing recent cases in Los Angeles and Houston.

Among them, the San Jose case six weeks ago seems to stand out as a glaring gotcha moment in the long history of waistband cases.

Samuel Walker, the veteran Nebraska-based criminologist and police accountability watchdog, told the San Jose Mercury News that it seemed clear that police had prematurely seized upon the “easiest” explanation—the waistband reach—in a questionable shooting.

After police admitted to a fabricated explanation, Walker said, “It makes everything else they say suspect."

"In communities of color, this is the concern, that the standard response is that 'he made a furtive movement and went for something in the waist,'" LaDoris Cordell, the recently retired director of San Jose's Office of the Independent Police Auditor, told the paper. "We've heard it a million times. Now we hear it again in this one. I can tell you, I'm getting emails from people in San Jose saying, 'How are we going to trust the police department?'"

http://www.alternet.org/print/civil-...rmed-black-men

[boutons_deux]

Video shows California cops punching unarmed woman in brutal arrest — for a seatbelt violation





http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/vide...e+Raw+Story%29

[boutons_deux]

Oklahoma cop facing felony charges after savagely beating unarmed suspect with butt of shotgun




This is not the first time Denton has been accused of brutalizing a suspect.

In 2011 he was fired after video (seen below) showed him mocking a handcuffed suspect before repeatedly elbowing him in the face.

Denton sued for reinstatement and an appeals court ordered him reinstated with back pay totaling $366,000.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/okla...e+Raw+Story%29

[Trill Clinton]

Video shows California cops punching unarmed woman in brutal arrest — for a seatbelt violation





http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/vide...e+Raw+Story%29

Oklahoma cop facing felony charges after savagely beating unarmed suspect with butt of shotgun




This is not the first time Denton has been accused of brutalizing a suspect.

In 2011 he was fired after video (seen below) showed him mocking a handcuffed suspect before repeatedly elbowing him in the face.

Denton sued for reinstatement and an appeals court ordered him reinstated with back pay totaling $366,000.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/okla...e+Raw+Story%29

[boutons_deux]

12-Year-Old Black Boy Suspended For Staring At Classmate

Last week, an Ohio judge refused to erase the suspension of a 12-year-old black boy who waspunished for staring at his classmate last year.

The boy was suspended several days after participating in a staring contest with a white female classmate at St. Gabriel Consolidated School, and allegedly made her feel “fearful.”

School officials were notified by the girl’s parents the day after the contest, claiming she felt intimidated by the boy.

But the boy, who was forced to write an apology letter and subsequently suspended for a day, maintained he was unaware that his classmate was feeling uncomfortable.

“I never knew she was scared because she was laughing,” he wrote

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...-at-classmate/

... if he were white ...

[cd021]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/05/politi...apd/index.html

Family of man who died in police custody awarded $2.85 million dollars.

Coppers beat down an mentally ill unarmed man and acted like they were in the right.

[boutons_deux]

Criminalizing Blackness: A Mississippi Community College's School-to-Jail Pipeline

My turn came when I discovered that my baby brother - my beautiful, incredible, sweet, smart, loving, brilliant baby brother, Akinola Gonzalez - had been arrested on his campus at Hinds Community College where he is studying engineering in Raymond, Mississippi. I called my mother immediately. Her voice sounded so worried, at times so powerless, so frantic ... so exhausted. Our worst nightmare, being forced to face our inability to protect him and keep him safe, was happening. Our illusion of successfully getting him to "safety" via a college campus rapidly dissipated.

He was arrested in the early evening. The officers told us they were backed up and had no idea when they would be able to process him. The charge, they said, was "failure to comply," but they would offer no further details.

After spending nearly 23 hours in jail, my brother was finally released after we were able to hire a bondsman - only after an obscene amount of runaround from the holding facility. We were told they "didn't know where he was," then told he was transported to court (where we had to find and hire an attorney at the last minute). We then found out he was transported not to court but to a penal farm. On Raymond Penal Farm, the city of Raymond, Mississippi, is extracting forced labor from countless Black people, who are kept in holding cells for misdemeanors.

We were furious. We discovered later that my brother was strip-searched (twice), humiliated, transferred into a prison jumpsuit and told to sign a piece a paper from Raymond Penal Farm stating he would work off his bond at $50 per day until he could be released. His bond was $500.

The crime? Allegedly, "sagging." Sagging, the wearing of one's pants below the waistline often times exposing one's underwear, has been a hot source of debate for some time. Champions of "respectability politics" often seek to portray sagging as related to gang culture, crime and irresponsible parenting. Some critics of the practice also use phobic rhetoric to dissuade men and boys from sagging, circulating the myth that sagging is a way to signal an openness to sex between men in prison.

Although my brother claims he was not sagging, we are left baffled, wondering how an alleged dress code violation could possibly lead to an arrest. How does a young man, living on campus and paying tuition, find himself booked, strip-searched, incarcerated and sent to a penal farm because of how he chooses to wear his pants?

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/ite...-jail-pipeline

[boutons_deux]

Detroit police excited about SWAT vehicle costing $700,000. Meanwhile, Detroit is bankrupt




Last month the beleaguered city of Detroit received a gift. Well, they didn't receive a gift. They bought it. Actually, the Detroit Police Department bought it for themselves. The DPD does have Detroit in their organization's name and they're way too excited about it in the way you would be if you received a gift. A $700,000 behemoth of a gift that even has a cute name: "The Bear."

“When we have officer or citizens pinned down, The Bear provides that adequate coverage because of its height,” explained Detroit Police Commander Elvin Barren. “The technology that’s on The Bear — we have cameras on there, we have a ram that can breach down doors and fences.”Barren told WWJ Newsradio 950’s Mike Campbell it’s an important piece of equipment that gives the force “a tactical advantage” in barricaded gunman situations.

“We’re excited about The Bear!” Barren said.

The vehicle was paid with civil forfeiture money.

The kind of money that law enforcement is trained to steal from citizens—like when Detroit police seized 44 cars at a party because alcohol had been served without a license.

In unrelated news, the poor in Detroit have no right to clean water. Just a little FYI.

You can watch Jay Leno touring through the LAPD's "The Bear" SWAT vehicle, below the fold.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/1...t?detail=email

[boutons_deux]

Police withhold videos despite vows of transparency

In the turbulent year since Michael Brown’s death sparked protests in Ferguson, Mo., and beyond, politicians, law enforcement officials and community activists have seized on body cameras as a vital reform capable of restoring transparency and trust to police interactions with the public. But in Burlington and elsewhere around the country, police and other officials are routinely blocking the release of body camera videos while giving officers accused of wrongdoing special access to the footage.

Nationwide, police have shot and killed 760 people since January, according to a Washington Post database tracking every fatal shooting. Of those, The Post has found 49 incidents captured by body camera, or about 6 percent.

Just 21 of those videos — less than half — have been publicly released. And in several of those cases, the footage, as in Burlington, was severely cut or otherwise edited.

Meanwhile, virtually all of the 36 departments involved in those shootings have permitted their officers to view the videos before giving statements to investigators, The Post found. Civil and human rights groups fear that access could help rogue officers tailor their stories to obscure misconduct and avoid prosecution.

“What point is there of even doing this if they are going to be treated this way? Why even spend the money on these cameras?” said Burlington Mayor Shane McCampbell, who has called on police to release video of the Steele shooting. He noted that police promised greater openness last year when they pe ioned the city to buy body cameras.

If the videos “are going to be a secret, no one is being held accountable,” McCampbell said. “And that was the point.”

While individual police departments are adopting rules on the local level, police chiefs and unions are lobbying state officials to enshrine favorable policies into law. In 36 states and the District this year, lawmakers introduced legislation to create statewide rules governing the use of body cameras, often with the goal of increasing transparency.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/nat...-transparency/

militarized, murderous cops are totally out of control and unaccountable.

[boutons_deux]

Officer's Shooting Of Boy Who Was Holding Pellet Gun Justified

Prosecutors investigating the death of a 12-year-old black boy who was fatally shot by a white Cleveland police officer say they are just trying to be transparent in seeking and sharing outside reviews by experts in use of force. A lawyer for the boy's family, however, says the outside reports finding that the shooting was justified show that prosecutors are avoiding accountability.

The reports were released Saturday night by the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office, which asked for the outside reviews as it presents evidence to a grand jury that will ultimately determine whether Timothy Loehmann will be charged in the November death of Tamir Rice, who was holding a pellet gun.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/1...8Daily+Kos%29#

Escalation immediately to shooting, with no delay, no attempt to de-escalate or to tell the suspect to drop his (pellet) gun and hands up, is justified. ing cops get such a free pass.

[boutons_deux]

Even in a deeply blue, SUCCESSFULLY blue state ...

Minnesota Law Enforcement's Request To Treat All Body Camera Footage As 'Classified' Rejected By State Administrator

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...istrator.shtml