Police abuse

US Border Patrol A Police State, US Deaths In Custody

January 1, 2014 Massoud Hayoun, www.america.aljazeera.com Educate! Human Rights, Police abuse

"The problem is that obviously, there is a real lack of transparency and accountability within" the Border Patrol, the San Diego ACLU's border litigation attorney Mitra Ebadolahi said. Ebadolahi told Al Jazeera that since 2005, 42 people have died while in Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection custody — according to an investigation by the Arizona Republic — "none of which have led to a transparent investigation by the government." Of those who died, 13 were American nationals like Keith. Christian Ramirez, human rights director of civil liberties group Alliance San Diego told Al Jazeera that because people aren't allowed to use cell phones or take flash photography at many border crossing checkpoints, it's difficult to document alleged abuses.

Occupy Oakland Holds Two New Year’s Eve Protests

January 1, 2014 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Occupy, Police abuse

The Contra Costa Times reports that group of over 100 participated in a march organized by Occupy Oakland from Frank H. Ogawa Plaza to the North County Jail and back, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the shooting of Oscar Grant by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle. A few citations were handed out but no arrests were made according to police. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that two protests were planned for New Year's Eve by Occupy Oakland. They wrote that the first protest was a vigil to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the killing of Oscar Grant: "On New Year’s Day, there will be a vigil from noon to 4 p.m., at the Fruitvale BART Station to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant by a BART police officer. The event is being billed as a celebration with live music and a guest appearance by Ryan Coogler, director of the movie 'Fruitvale Station.'" On New Year's Eve night Occupy Oakland "put out the call to gather at Frank Ogawa Plaza at 9:30 p.m. New Year’s Eve for a march to the North County Jail on Sixth Street downtown." People were "encouraged to bring 'friends, noisemakers, fireworks' to 'bring the noise to inmates.'"

Turkish Police Crack Down On Anti-Govt Protest

December 27, 2013 Staff, www.rt.com Resist! Corruption, Police abuse, Türkiye

Clashes started at around 17:30 GMT on Friday, with police using water cannons to disperse the crowd which gathered to voice their anger against the government’s actions, Firth reports from the site. This comes amid an ongoing high-profile corruption scandal. “It's very symbolic of the anger we've seen that has been building over the last couple of days,” she says.“Bits of rock and marble are everywhere you look,” with protesters throwing them at law enforcement officers. According to posts on Twitter, police followed protesters into side streets and fired rubber bullets, prompting them to respond with empty glasses. A reporter for Turkey's liberal Radikal newspaper “was shot by a rubber bullet,” but despite being hurt “bravely keeps on reporting” from Taksim Square.

Systemic Racism Never Lets Up, Not Even During The Holidays

December 27, 2013 Ethan Buckner, occupywallstreet.net Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Police abuse, Racism

I ran out of my house to find no less than 5 squad cars and 12 cops surrounding a middle-aged black man. I whipped out my phone and started videotaping. “I’ve lived in this house for 31 years,” he pleaded, pointing to the house two doors down from mine. It’s a beautiful, towering old home, and though I haven’t lived in my neighborhood long, I know that this house is always bustling with friendly activity. As I stood watching this scene with a few other neighbors, the Lieutenant on the scene came by for a chat. “It’s just sad to me, you know,” he starts, assuming I ‘know’ what he means. “People see cops and just assume we’re up to no good.” He went on to explain that there had been ‘suspicious’ activity reported in the neighborhood for a few days, and the police were only responding to a call. “Do you actually know what the suspicious activity was?” I ask. “Someone called about a suspicious person in a car,” was his response. No details. As if to prove something, he hailed his dispatcher on his radio, right in front of us, to ask for a repeat of the call he responded to. A car indeed had, been reported related to burglaries - but it was an entirely different make and model.

Popular Resistance Newsletter – Youth Can Handle The Truth

December 22, 2013 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Austerity, Education, Finance and the Economy, Police abuse, Youth

This week we want to highlight some of the issues that are spurring youth to get active in their communities and what they are doing about them. Young people are yearning to understand the world, even when the truth is horrible, so that they can change it for the better. Mary Elizabeth Williams writes in Salon: “They’re questioning and curious and skeptical and intensely philosophical. They want to make sense of the world and reasons people do the things they do. They have amazing ideas, ideas that are too often wrung out of them by a school culture increasingly devoted to filling in little circles and insisting there’s only one correct answer to any problem that comes along, and only one way of arriving at that.”

German Activists Protest Rota Flore Eviction

December 22, 2013 Resist! Germany, Immigration, Police abuse

Several hundred activists were injured, 120 detained and 16 arrested in Hamburg when armed riot cops attacked 8,000 demonstrators, who, in solidarity with refugees, gathered to defend the Rota Flore, which is under threat of being evicted, after last week the “Esso” social houses were already evicted. While surveilling demonstrators from the helicopter, between 2,000-3,000 cops, armed with water cannons, teargas, and guns, surrounded the demonstrators and attacked them, unprovoked. Footage clearly proves this as cops are suddenly seen rushing towards the demonstrators and attacking them. Activists say the cops claimed their attack was justified because the “demonstration started too early.” There was a massive use of teargas, cops seemed to mimic the tactics used during the Gezi repression by the Turkish police, and continuously attacked demonstrators with water canons.

Is This Gang Rape By Border Police?

December 22, 2013 Aaron Bracamontes, www.elpasotimes.com Resist! Police abuse

A New Mexico woman claims in a federal lawsuit that she underwent a brutal and inhumane six-hour full-body cavity search by federal officers that included anal and vaginal probes that made her feel like an "animal." The woman, a Lovington, N.M. resident, also is suing University Medical Center, where she was forced to have an observed bowel movement, was X-rayed, had a speculum exam, vaginal exam and had a CT scan. The suit claims the hospital "violated her" and then gave her the $5,000 bill. The lawsuit names the El Paso County Hospital District's Board of Managers, University Medical Center, Drs. Michael Parsa and Christopher Cabanillas, two unknown supervising U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and two other CBP officers only identified by their last names of Portillo and Herrera as defendants. The doctors and the agents could not be reached for comment. "The fact that our government treated an innocent 54-year-old woman with such brutality and inhumanity should outrage all Americans. We must ensure that government agents never put another person through a nightmare like this ever again," said ACLU of New Mexico Legal Director Laura Schauer Ives.

Support Copwatch Literature Distribution

December 22, 2013 Staff, www.razoo.com Resist! Police abuse

Berkeley Copwatch has been teaching people how to safely monitor police activity since 1990. We have trained people from various countries,conitnents and communities how to document misconduct, how to assert our rights and how to support individuals and communities in addressing issues of police and the abuse of power. We provide advice and support to victims of police abuse, go on copwatch shifts, teach a class in Community Based Police Accountability through UC Berkeley and we take on issues of militarization of police, racial profiling and treatment of the homeless people in our town. In fact, in 2013 we received the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists' James Madison Freedom of Information Award for our use of the Public Records Act in opposing Berkeley police efforts to obtain an armored personnel carrier. We do all of our trainings for free.

Parents and Families Against Police Brutality Condemn DeBlasio’s Police Commissioner

December 18, 2013 Occupy the Bronx, www.facebook.com Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Police abuse, Youth

We are all outraged over Mayor-elect DeBlasio’s choice of William Bratton for police commissioner and furious with Al Sharpton for allowing Bratton to speak at the National Action Network, knowing Bratton is not for the good of the Black community. At an inaugural press conference on October 3, 2002, newly appointed LAPD Chief William Bratton was quoted by the LATimes as saying: Where you have guns, you have drugs. Where you have drugs, you have youth. Where you have youth, you have gangs. Why treat them like four different diseases? When you go to a doctor, he treats the totality of all that are affecting your body. L.A. is not doing that in any way, shape or form. What can we expect from a cop who considers youth as a disease?

You Don’t Have The Right To Remain Silent

December 18, 2013 Brandon L. Garrett, www.slate.com Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Police abuse

The court’s ruling in Salinas is all the more troubling because during such informal, undocumented, and unregulated questioning, there are special dangers that police may, intentionally or not, coax false confessions from innocent suspects. I have spent years studying cases of people exonerated by DNA testing. A large group of those innocent people falsely confessed—and many supposedly admitted their guilt even before any formal interrogation. Take the case of Nicholas Yarris, who was exonerated by DNA testing in 2003, after 20 years in prison. He had been convicted and sentenced to death in Pennsylvania for the murder of a woman found raped, beaten, and stabbed near her abandoned Chrysler Cordoba.

In AL, PA And TX, Drivers Pulled Over, Asked For Blood And Saliva

December 18, 2013 Lisa Simeone, www.abombazine.blogspot.com Resist! Police abuse

In Alabama, in Texas and now in Pennsylvania, drivers have been flagged down by police and told to pull over into a parking lot so that a survey company can "ask" them for blood and saliva. What exactly are they "surveying"? It was part of a government research study aimed at determining the number of drunken or drug-impaired drivers. Oh, really? So for a government research study, you enlist the police, complete with flashing lights and roadblocks If it happens to you -- and it might, because it's going on in 30 cities -- for saying you felt caught off guard, you were taken aback, you didn't know how to handle it. All those feelings, when someone is caught off guard, are understandable. But now that you know, you can do what you're supposed to do -- tell the cops and the "survey" takers to shove it, and go on your way. And then make damn sure you tell everyone you know about it. Instead of posting pictures of beer pong on your Facebook page, and tweeting about your seats at some football game, maybe you could use the power of social media to spread the word about the "security" creep in this country. Oh, but that's right, silly me -- this kind of shit only goes on in totalitarian societies. We live in a Free Country™.

Undercover Police In Schools Entrap Students On Drug Charges

December 16, 2013 Tony Newman, www.alternet.org Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Drug Policy, Education, Police abuse, Youth

Here we go again. Undercover cops pose as students, make friends, build trust, and then arrest teenagers for selling mostly small amounts of marijuana. Yesterday nearly two dozen students were busted at two southern California high-schools, according to Riverside County Sheriff officials. Two undercover cops, a woman and a man, had been posing as students since the beginning of the year. The majority of the drug buys were small amounts of marijuana, but there were some other drugs seized including cocaine and prescription pills. The campus was shaken yesterday, according to a story in the Press Enterprise. Students were shocked to see their friends arrested in class and left wondering who they can and cannot trust in their peer groups.

Oakland Agrees To Pay Occupy Protesters In Brutality Cases

December 16, 2013 Henry K. Lee, www.sfgate.com Educate! Police abuse

The Oakland City Council has agreed to pay more than $693,000 to settle two lawsuits filed by Occupy Oakland protesters who alleged they were the victims of police brutality. The payouts, for the videotaped beatings of two apparently peaceful protesters, come less than six months after the city approved $2 million in settlements to resolve lawsuits accusing police of mistreating protesters at Occupy and BART demonstrations. The city authorized paying Army veteran Kayvan Sabeghi $645,000 on Tuesday to resolve a lawsuit he filed against the city in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, alleging that he was clubbed by Oakland police during an Occupy protest on Nov. 2, 2011.

The Criminalization Of Everyday Life

December 15, 2013 Chase Madar, www.tomdispatch.com Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Police abuse

If all you’ve got is a hammer, then everything starts to look like a nail. And if police and prosecutors are your only tool, sooner or later everything and everyone will be treated as criminal. This is increasingly the American way of life, a path that involves “solving” social problems (and even some non-problems) by throwing cops at them, with generally disastrous results. Wall-to-wall criminal law encroaches ever more on everyday life as police power is applied in ways that would have been unthinkable just a generation ago. By now, the militarization of the police has advanced to the point where "the War on Crime” and “the War on Drugs” are no longer metaphors but bland understatements.

How It Feels to Be A Whistleblower

December 14, 2013 Carla Murphy, www.colorlines.com Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Police abuse, Racism

In the fall of 2009, on the advice of a lawyer, a young police officer named Adhyl Polanco started wearing a recording device during roll call at his precinct in the South Bronx, one of the poorest congressional districts in the country. Among the contents captured over a couple of months of secret tapings was repeated instruction that officers complete “20 and 1.” According to testimony from the union delegate whom Polanco had captured on tape, that meant officers were required to fulfill 20 summonses and make one arrest within 20 to 22 days of patrol—regardless of whether they reasonably suspected criminal activity was taking place. According to the federal judge who this August ruled the New York Police Department’s practice of stop-and-frisk unconstitutional, Polanco’s evidence helped provide “a rare window into how the NYPD’s policies are actually carried out.

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