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Accountability

Chicago: Grassroots Organizing Wins Decisive Police Accountability Victory

May 9, 2023 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , ,
In July of 2021, after decades of grassroots organizing and pressure, the city of Chicago passed the Empowering Communities for Public Safety ordinance. As designated by the ordinance, 66 people were elected to represent 22 police districts in the council elections this year. They were inaugurated on May 2. The new council will oversee the police in Chicago. Clearing the FOG speaks with Frank Chapman, executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, about how they built the grassroots power to win the ordinance, what it will do and the police response to it. Chapman said NAARPR was formed after the murder of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark and that Hampton's vision is finally beginning to be realized more than 50 years later.

Major Victory In The Struggle Against Police Crimes In Milwaukee

April 23, 2023 Fight Back News!. , , ,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin - On April 20, after two years of fighting by the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and victimized families, a new policy that guarantees the public release of police camera footage after critical incidents was passed by the Fire and Police Commission (FPC). This policy requires the Milwaukee Police Department to release video footage of any critical incidents to the victim’s next of kin within 48 hours and to the public within 15 days. While the Milwaukee Alliance and their allies were demanding the 48-hour public release of footage and 24-hour release of the names of police officers involved, it is a massive step forward towards police transparency and accountability in Milwaukee.

Police Accountability Leaders Discuss Minneapolis Policing Agreement

April 9, 2023 Niko Georgiades, Unicorn Riot. , , ,
Minneapolis, Minnesota – A new, court-enforceable settlement agreement sets a road map for policing changes in Minneapolis, authorities said during a press conference on March 31. A week later, police accountability movement leaders held a press conference in City Hall to speak on what the agreement means to the everyday people of Minneapolis who’ve endured the violent, racist practices of the police. Speakers at the press conference included Michelle Gross, President of Communities United Against Police Brutality, Jaylani Hussein, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN), Myon Burrell, who spent 18 years incarcerated for a murder he didn’t commit...

UN Security Council Won’t Probe Nord Stream Bombing

March 28, 2023 Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com. , , , ,
The UN Security Council voted Monday against a Russian effort to get an independent investigation into the bombings of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines that connect Russia to Germany. The only members of the Council that voted in favor of the resolution were Russia, China, and Brazil. The remaining 12 members abstained from the vote, including the US, the likely culprit of the attacks. The resolution had little chance of passing since it needed at least nine votes in favor and no veto from any of the five permanent members of the Security Council: the US, China, Russia, Britain, and France.

Silent No More

March 28, 2023 Stewart Acuff, Stansbury Forum. , , , ,
Under a sky spitting freezing rain with a cold whipping wind, Kimberly Burks, the mother of Quantez Burks, helped assemble the 150 marchers and stepped us off from the home of Quantez Burks at noon. We marched through the neighborhood and out to well-travelled thoroughfares and around the Beckley Police Station. We then lined a block of the main street through town holding and waving signs, some folks crying, others remembered the two men and the shock of their deaths. Josh Eagle, a friend of Burks, held a sign that read: “What if Quan was your son? Brother? Father? Husband? Friend? Uncle? We want answers. We demand justice.”

Ohio Community Confronts Company, Politicians After Train Wreck

March 3, 2023 Otis Grotewohl, Workers World. , , , ,
President Joe Biden’s trip to Kiev, Ukraine, Feb. 20 shocked people living near East Palestine, Ohio, who have been devastated by a Feb. 3 toxic train derailment. The accident involved a 150-car train owned by Norfolk Southern, carrying dangerous and hazardous chemicals, which jackknifed due to a broken axle. On Feb. 6, state authorities slowly released and burned dangerous chemicals, such as the cancer-causing vinyl chloride and others, into the air. Since then, people in the area have faced various health problems ranging from slight headaches and sore throats to coughing up and vomiting blood.

Police Accountability Is A ‘Non-Starter’ Without Discarding The Qualified Immunity Doctrine

February 14, 2023 Ben Rosenfeld, CounterPunch.org. , , ,
Some reps in Congress assert that dismantling qualified immunity (“QI”)—a police officer’s so-called good faith defense to a civil rights lawsuit—is a “non-starter” in negotiations to pass the George Floyd Civil Rights Act. In reality, meaningful police accountability is a non-starter without discarding QI. QI is a regressive framework which has turned federal civil rights lawsuits into sheer games of chance with bad odds. Under QI, the Supreme Court instructs judges to apply a two-pronged analysis, in a specific order: first to examine whether the right sought to be vindicated was clearly-established at the time, and second to examine whether the officer reasonably could have believed his/her conduct was lawful.

Activists Demand Independent Investigation After Cops Kill Protester

January 21, 2023 Mike Ludwig, Truthout. , , , , ,
Atlanta, Georgia - An activist was shot and killed by police on Wednesday during a violent raid of the protest camp and community gathering space that has blocked construction of an enormous police training facility known as “Cop City” on roughly 100 acres of public forest in southeast Atlanta. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation initially said a suspect was shot and killed after allegedly firing a gun and injuring a Georgia state trooper during the raid, but fellow protesters and community activists doubt the official narrative and are calling on journalists and legal observers to investigate. Tensions between police and the tree-sitting protesters (known as “forest defenders”) have been rising for months, and activists said they had previously demanded police stop bringing guns and other weapons into the forest to prevent needless injury and death.

Pentagon Admits They Can’t Account For Half Their Assets

December 15, 2022 Lee Camp, Mintpress News. , ,
The Pentagon – the U.S. “Defense” Department – was just audited for the fifth time. And they just announced they failed for the fifth time. If that’s not accountability, I don’t know what is! When I say they “failed” their audit, I don’t mean they put a 9 instead of a 7 on one of the balance sheets, causing two soldiers to get accidentally left in Antarctica freezing their asses off. I mean, they really failed their audit. As The Hill put it, “The Defense Department has failed its fifth-ever audit, unable to account for more than half of its assets, but the—” Hold up. Hold up. Did ya catch that? They can’t account for over half their assets! This is the largest murder machine on the planet – nearly a trillion dollars spent every year – and they don’t know where half their shit is?! How is this not criminal?

The Pentagon Fails Its Fifth Audit In A Row

November 26, 2022 Connor Echols, Responsible Statecraft. , , ,
Last week, the Department of Defense revealed that it had failed its fifth consecutive audit. “I would not say that we flunked,” said DoD Comptroller Mike McCord, although his office did note that the Pentagon only managed to account for 39 percent of its $3.5 trillion in assets. “The process is important for us to do, and it is making us get better. It is not making us get better as fast as we want.” The news came as no surprise to Pentagon watchers. After all, the U.S. military has the distinction of being the only U.S. government agency to have never passed a comprehensive audit. But what did raise some eyebrows was the fact that DoD made almost no progress in this year’s bookkeeping: Of the 27 areas investigated, only seven earned a clean bill of financial health, which McCord described as “basically the same picture as last year.”

Chicago: Election Season Begins For Police Accountability Councils

September 4, 2022 Joe Iosbaker, Fightback News. , , ,
Chicago, IL - Chicago saw two developments this past week in the struggle for democratic control of the police by the Black and Latino communities in Chicago. First, after a long delay, Mayor Lori Lightfoot appointed the interim Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA). This was created out of the passage of historic legislation in 2021, Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS), the most democratic legislation for police accountability in the country. Second, election season began on August 30, when candidates for municipal office can start circulating petitions to get on the ballot in February 2023. The February ballot will include first-in-the-country police district council elections.

The Chris Hedges Report: John Kiriakou, We Don’t Need The CIA

August 13, 2022 Chris Hedges, The Real News Network. , , ,
The CIA, from its inception, carried out assassinations, coups, torture, and illegal spying and abuse, including of US citizens, many of which were exposed in 1975 by the Church Committee in the Senate and the Pike Committee in the House. Congress attempted to enact laws to curb the widespread criminal activity by the CIA. Senate and House intelligence oversight committees were created, and after the Iran-Contra scandal a statutory Inspector General at the CIA was appointed. But this oversight has largely collapsed following the attacks of 9/11 and the so-called war on terror. The activities of the CIA have once again reverted to the shadows. The CIA, at the same time, has transformed itself into a paramilitary organization, with its own armed units and drone program.

US Clears Israel Of Intentionally Killing Shireen Abu Akleh

July 5, 2022 Maureen Clare Murphy, The Electronic Intifada. , , , , ,
On the day that the US celebrates its so-called independence on colonized land, Washington signed off on Israel’s clearing itself of direct responsibility for the killing of prominent Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. A statement attributed to Ned Price, spokesperson for the US State Department, said that American officials “could not reach a definitive conclusion regarding the origin of the bullet that killed” Abu Akleh because it was too badly damaged. Price’s statement added that US officials “concluded that gunfire from IDF [Israeli military] positions was likely responsible for the death of Shireen Abu Akleh.”

Johnson & Johnson Seeking To Avoid Thousands Of Lawsuits

May 21, 2022 Russell Mokhiber, Corporate Crime Reporter. , , ,
The ‘Texas Two-Step’ is the name given to a highly controversial legal strategy that some of the biggest companies are now using to shield their assets from accountability.  It allows massively wealthy corporations whose products caused harm to avoid paying damages to the victims of that harm and it denies the victims their right to make their case in court and be judged by a jury of their peers.  Earlier this year, Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee highlighted the story of Kimberly Naranjo, a mesothelioma victim who testified about Johnson & Johnson’s actions.  Naranjo has been denied her right to hold Johnson & Johnson accountable in court. “There’s a justice system for rich people and powerful corporations – and there’s the system for everyone else,” said Durbin.

US Groups Demand Full Probe After Israeli Forces Kill Shireen Abu Akleh

May 14, 2022 Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams. , , ,
Human rights advocates on Wednesday called for a thorough and transparent investigation after Al Jazeera and witnesses said Israeli forces shot and killed one of the network's reporters while she was at work. Shireen Abu Akleh, a well-known 51-year-old Palestinian-American correspondent, was wearing a helmet and press jacket that clearly identified her as a journalist when Israeli forces shot her in the face as she covered an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the illegally occupied West Bank of Palestine. Another Palestinian journalist, Ali al-Samoudi, was shot in the back but is reportedly in stable condition. While Israeli officials falsely claimed Palestinian militants shot Abu Akleh, Al Jazeera condemned her killing as "blatant murder."
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