Police abuse

New Federal Police Surge Targets Poor And Black Communities

January 13, 2020 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Crime, Drug War, Operation Relentless Pursuit, Police abuse

In December, the Department of Justice announced a new $71 million program, Operation Relentless Pursuit, that will increase policing and the involvement of federal agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Agency in seven cities, four of which are majority-black cities. Rather than addressing the root causes of crime, the program will result in greater repression and violence against these communities. We speak with Jacqueline Luqman about the program, what policies would be more effective and what people are doing to fight back. Kevin Zeese, who has worked for decades to end the war on drugs and mass incarceration, describes how similar programs have been tried in the past and have failed. We also provide current news and analysis.

Black Alliance For Peace – Baltimore Demands End To Policing Surge

January 12, 2020 Hood Communist. Resist! Baltimore, militarism, Operation Relentless Pursuit, Police abuse

Baltimore, MD - At the end of October, during the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Chicago, President Trump announced, “In coming weeks, Attorney General Barr will announce a new crackdown on violent crime—which I think is so important—targeting gangs and drug traffickers in high crime cities and dangerous rural areas.” Attorney General Barr announced, right before the holidays, the initiative known as Operation Relentless Pursuit at a news conference in Detroit, Michigan. Joining him were leaders of the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and U.S. Marshals Service. Baltimore City is one of 7 cities, including Detroit, Albuquerque, Cleveland, Kansas City, Memphis and Milwaukee, selected for the new crime program intended to “surge” federal, state and local resources into cities where violent [horizontal] crime rates remain high.

$71 Million For More Cops; Not A Dime For Jobs And Healthcare

January 11, 2020 Jacqueline Luqman, Therealnews.com Educate! DOJ, Police abuse, Surveillance, Unemployment

In December last year, Attorney General William P. Barr announced the launch of Operation Relentless Pursuit, an initiative aimed at quote, combating violent crime and seven of America’s most violent cities through a surge in federal resources. While the seven cities targeted by this new law enforcement initiative are near or at the bottom of the Bureau of labor statistics unemployment rate from major cities, indicating that unemployment is at the higher end of the scale. What Barr calls the surge in federal law enforcement resources to combat crime, including tens of millions of dollars for hiring more police officers, doesn’t seem to be available to get anyone a job who isn’t willing to be a cop. What do the residents of these cities do in the face of this new effort to allegedly combat crime that doesn’t actually address the roots of crime, nor does it meet the needs of the people most affected by the crime?

Campaign For Community Control Of Police Goes National

November 4, 2019 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Community Control, Democracy, Police abuse, Racism

From November 22 to 24, the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, founded in 1973, will be relaunching itself in Chicago, IL. A major part of the conference will be focused on work to create community control of the police to end racist, violent and murderous police actions. We speak with Frank Chapman, who has been with the alliance from the start and who is involved in the work in Chicago to create a Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC). They have legislation in the city government. Chapman speaks about how they have made so much progress to this goal in Chicago, what potential it will unleash for transformative change and how it ties into the long struggle for black liberation and against fascism.

Cleveland Flag Burners Awarded $650,000 For Being Arrested

September 27, 2019 By Gregory Joey Johnson from his Blog Resist! Flag Burning, Police abuse

Total settlements paid out by the City of Cleveland to protesters arrested after burning of American flag outside 2016 RNC have now reached close to 1 million dollars ($925,000). This current round of settlements is in addition to $225,000 Cleveland paid out last June to Gregory "Joey" Johnson of the landmark 1989 Supreme Court case, Texas v Johnson which established flag burning in protest as constitutionally protected speech. Another arrested protester previously received a $50,000 settlement. Plaintiff Rafael Kadaris stated, "Over three years ago we called out the fascism of Donald Trump, which is now on full display, from the cries of children in cages to the blood on the streets of El Paso. When do YOU say enough is enough?"

US-Trained Honduran Police Get Midievel

August 18, 2019 Adrienne Pine, Mintpress News. Resist! Honduras, Police abuse, Studentsse, US coup

Tegucigalpa, Honduras - “It’s sad how the United States is supporting this corrupt government,” Honduran political prisoner Edwin Espinal told MintPress News immediately after his release from prison, where he had spent 19 months. Edwin’s case — and the medieval violence to which U.S.-trained police in Honduras tried to subject me — perfectly illustrate the often lethal repression that has fueled the migrant crisis. After hours of police hurling stones and tear gas at student protesters last week, young children gathered the aluminum scraps from the ground to sell, underscoring that the poverty brought on by U.S.-backed neoliberal measures has gone hand-in-hand with police violence in fueling the human-rights catastrophe at the heart of the central American exodus.

Emails Show FBI And Police Are Monitoring Oregon Anti-Pipeline Activists

August 15, 2019 By Jordan Davidson, EcoWatch Resist! FBI, Pipelines, Police abuse, Surveillance

The FBI and several other law enforcement agencies have been keeping tabs on pipeline opponents in southwest Oregon, according to documents obtained by the Guardian. Opponents of the natural gas pipeline project have been monitored for years and information about the activists has been shared between law enforcement agencies and even with non-government firms, including Off The Record Strategies — an anti-environmental public relations agency that helped craft a message against the Standing Rock activists opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline two years ago, according to the Guardian.

Michael Brown’s Death Continues To Be A Catalyst For Change

August 15, 2019 Lornet Turnbull, Waging Nonviolence. Resist! Art, Ferguson, Mike Brown, Police abuse

Michael Brown Sr. lies stock-still on his back on the floor of an art studio in St. Louis as an artist layers papier-mache on his arms, chest, and torso. Brown Sr. is a stand-in, the model for a life-size replica that St. Louis artist Dail Chambers is creating to represent Michael Brown Jr. — his deceased son. In the days and weeks that followed, other artists added their own interpretations to the cast, and community leaders, family, friends, and activists affixed messages of remembrance, of hope, as well as photos and tributes to Brown Jr. “Although everybody else has left since your death, we are still here fighting,” one 16-year-old girl wrote. The final exhibit, called “As I See You,” will be part of a memorial Aug. 9–11 for Brown Jr., five years after a police officer took the 18-year-old’s life in Ferguson, Missouri.

‘Fuera JOH’: Honduras Protests, Police Respond With Violence

August 8, 2019 From Daniel Langmier, Honduras Forum Switzerland. Resist! Honduras, Police abuse, Students, US coup

Protests are happening daily now calling for the president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, to resign. Here is a compilation of reports provided by The Honduras Solidarity Network we received last night. Honduras lived through another day of protest and the participants suffered more repression by the JOH regime. The international press started to cover this new wave of protests. The Honduras Solidarity Network denounces three injured students at least one by bullets, in Tegucigalpa. In San Pedro Sula, the police threw tear gas into buses transporting university students. UNAH dean Francisco Herrera called it "a barbaric act". The Platform for the Defense of Education and Healthcare calls for new protests today including one in front of the MP demanding the issuance of an arrest warrant against JOH and his family.

Mass Shootings, Militarism And Policing Are Chapters In The Same Manifesto

August 6, 2019 Derecka Purnell, Truthout. Educate! Mass Shootings, militarism, Police abuse, Racism

This weekend, after two mass shooters killed and injured dozens of people in Texas and Ohio, Rep. Steve Cohen tweeted, “You want to shoot an assault weapon? Go to Afghanistan or Iraq. Enlist!” Cohen, a Democrat from Tennessee, apparently did not take issue with the El Paso shooter’s desire to slaughter people of color — he merely wanted to redirect his bullets toward people of color outside of the United States. His tweet was a chilling reminder of how the United States’ militarism against other countries and its domestic manifestations of white supremacy replicate and reinforce each other.  White people attack Brown and Black Muslims in the United States precisely because of the country’s wars abroad. The United States’ destructive trade agreements and military intervention in Central and South America drive North American refugee border crossings, and armed white militia groups patrol the desert to catch or kill refugees seeking help.

Tragedy In Kansas: Medical-Marijuana User Dies After Police Raid

August 2, 2019 By Doug McVay, Freedomleaf.com Educate! Kansas, Medical Marijuana, Police abuse

Jennifer Hess, her husband Homer Wilson and their two sons were minding their own business on the night of Thursday, May 23 in their Eureka, Kansas home when policed knocked on the door. What happened next would change their lives forever. The officers said “someone had reported screaming coming from my house, which there wasn’t, and I went to close the door. At that point, they forced the door open. Two of them entered the house, and they demanded I go outside,” Hess tells Freedom Leaf. On June 14 on Facebook, she wrote: “They said they were getting a search warrant, alleging they had seen drug paraphernalia in the house.”

Willem Van Spronsen AKA Emma Durutti: 5 Fast Facts You Need To Know

July 16, 2019 Tom Cleary, Heavy.com Resist! Activists, Detention Centers, Police abuse, Repression

Willem Van Spronsen was an anarchist and anti-fascist from Washington who was fatally shot by police on July 13 while trying to set a fire with incendiary devices during an attack at an ICE detention center in Tacoma. Authorities say Van Spronsen was armed with a rifle and threw “lit objects” at buildings and vehicles in the parking lot of the Northwest Detention Center. Van Spronsen, a Vashon Island musician, was shot and killed by Tacoma Police officers, the Seattle Times reports. No one else was injured. Van Spronsen also went by the name Emma Durutti on a now-deleted Facebook profile and on an album titled “the audio manifesto”...

St. Louis DA Creates Special Unit To Investigate Police Abuse

July 6, 2019 Chris King, St. Louis American. Create! Criminal Justice System, Investigation, Police abuse

St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell is rolling out a new Conviction and Incident Review Unit with two mandates that will, he said, “safeguard the integrity of convictions” won by the office. The Conviction and Incident Review Unit (CIRU) – which will stand as its own unit, independent from the rest of the office and answer solely to Bell, will employ a director who will be hired through a national search. Its mandates will be to review two sets of things: cases involving substantiated claims of wrongful prosecution or conviction, and all matters relating to police officer-involved shootings and alleged police misconduct. “The obligation of every prosecutor is to pursue justice, an obligation that cannot be met if the public lacks confidence in the integrity of criminal convictions,” Bell said in a statement.

French Police Face Probe Over Tear Gas At Climate Protest

July 5, 2019 Deutsche Welle. Educate! Extinction Rebellion, France, Police abuse, Tear Gas

Police in France faced criticism on Monday after a video of officers spraying tear gas on climate protesters staging a sit-in on a bridge emerged online, prompting the French interior minister to call for an investigation. The protest over the French government's environment policies was held by members of the Extinction Rebellion group at the Pont de Sully bridge during sweltering heat on Friday. A video shared on Twitter and since widely broadcast on news channels shows a group of protesters sitting on the ground with their arms linked and heads bowed after they had refused orders to vacate the bridge. When they refuse to move, officers spray them with hand-held tear gas canisters, while the demonstrators try to protect their faces.

Activist, Who Says NYPD Officers Tried To Frame Him, Gets $860,000 Settlement

April 10, 2019 Dean Meminger, Ny1.com Resist! Activists, NYPD, Police abuse

In the summer of 2016, activist Jose LaSalle was arrested after he recorded video of police stopping and frisking two men in the Bronx. On a secret recording provided by LaSalle, NYPD officers in the PSA 7 stationhouse can be heard cheering and accusing him of having committed a felony. But LaSalle, who founded the South Bronx Copwatch Patrol Unit, may be having the last laugh. His lawyer says the city and the NYPD agreed to pay LaSalle $860,000 after he accused the police of false arrest, imprisonment, and conspiracy.

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