Law Enforcement

Can Local Law Enforcement Be Democratized?

December 28, 2015 Simon Davis-Cohen, www.theleap.thischangeseverything.org Resist! Law Enforcement

By Simon Davis-Cohen for The Leap - In Medina County, Ohio, the local prosecutor, sheriff and judge are not behaving the way the fossil fuel industry has come to expect. A pipeline venture known as NEXUS is seeking to move 1.5 billion cubic feet of fracked gas per day across Ohio, angering and galvanizing residents along the route. However, despite not yet receiving a critical permit from the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Houston-based Spectra Energy and Detroit-based DTE Energy Co. have forged ahead with highly controversial surveying on private land. While most Ohio counties have streamlined access for NEXUS surveyors, Medina officials are cautiously resisting.

US Police Chiefs Launch Effort To End Mass Incarceration

October 24, 2015 Wilson Dizard, www.america.aljazeera.com Create! Law Enforcement, Mass Incarceration

By Wilson Dizard for Aljazeera - A group of 130 law enforcement officials announced the formation of a new organization on Wednesday to support the growing movement to end mass incarceration in the United States, where more people languish in prison than in any other country in the world. Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and Incarceration — which includes the police chiefs of New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles, as well as high-level prosecutors and officials from all 50 states — announced the effort which aims to lower the prison population by reducing arrests for non-violent crimes, increasing mental health and drug addiction services and eliminating mandatory minimum sentences.

Death Of Choctaw Activist Rexdale Henry In Neshoba Jail

July 27, 2015 R.L. Nave, www.jacksonfreepress.com Educate! Death, Indigenous Activist, Law Enforcement, police brutality, Police the Police

By R.L. Nave in Jackson Free Press - A private autopsy is under way for Rexdale W. Henry, a 53-year-old man found dead inside the Neshoba County Jail in Philadelphia, Miss., on July 14. According to WTOK, detention officers found Henry's body around 10 a.m.; he was last seen alive 30 minutes earlier. The state crime lab in Jackson conducted an autopsy and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is looking into the case. Funeral services for Henry took place July 19 in Bogue Chitto. A few days later, his body was flown to Florida for an independent autopsy paid for by anonymous donors. Henry, a member of the Choctaw tribe and a lifelong community activist, coached stickball and had been a candidate for the Choctaw Tribal Council from Bogue Chitto the week before his arrest on July 9 for failure to pay a fine. Helping with the family's independent probe are civil-rights activists John Steele, a close friend of Henry's, and Diane Nash, a cofounder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, as well as Syracuse University law professors Janis McDonald and Paula Johnson of the school's Cold Case Justice Initiative.

Kinder Morgan Paid PA Police Department To ‘Deter Protests’

May 22, 2015 Adam Federman, www.earthisland.org Educate! Criminal Justice, Environment, Law Enforcement, Oil & Gas

Between June and October 2013, Kinder Morgan, the largest energy infrastructure company in North America, paid a local Pennsylvania police department more than $50,000 to patrol a controversial pipeline upgrade. The company requested that the officers, though officially off-duty, be in uniform and marked cars. Kinder Morgan’s aim, according to documents obtained by Earth Island Journal, was to use law enforcement to “deter protests” in order to avoid “costly delays.” Kinder Morgan sought off-duty police officers to “deter protests" and avoid delay of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline upgrade. It’s unclear if the police department instructed its officers to explicitly “deter protests” but, if officers carried out Kinder Morgan’s request, their conduct would clearly violate the First Amendment rights of protesters.

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