Police the Police

Little-Known Civil Rights Statute In Police Shootings

December 30, 2014 Paul Lewis, www.theguardian.com Educate! Civil Rights, Law, police brutality, Police the Police

The review was launched after the Milwaukee district attorney announced that Christopher Manney – the police officer who shot Hamilton, and who has since been fired – will not face charges. In all four cases, federal officials are considering whether there is sufficient evidence to bring charges under a section of the US code that prohibits public officials from depriving an individual of constitutional rights under “color of law”. The DOJ did not respond to questions about whether there were any additional police shooting cases from 2014 – aside from those relating to the deaths of Brown, Garner, Crawford III and Hamilton – that are currently subject to departmental review or investigation.

Support For Two Key Police Reform Proposals Crosses Party Lines

December 30, 2014 Ariel Edwards-Levy, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! New York City (NYC), police brutality, Police the Police

Americans agree across party lines on some proposed police reform policies, according to the results of a Washington Post/ABC News poll released last weekend. Eighty-six percent of Americans support the use of body cameras, the poll found, and 87 percent are in favor of a policy requiring an investigation by an independent, outside prosecutor whenever police kill an unarmed civilian. Unlike many of the other issues related to recent police shootings or the subsequent protests, the Washington Post notes that the proposals spark relatively little divide across the ideological spectrum. More than three-quarters of both liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans back both the use of body cameras and independent prosecutors.

Cops And GOP Teaming Up Against de Blasio

December 30, 2014 Max Blumenthal, www.alternet.org Educate! New York City (NYC), NYPD, Police the Police

When hundreds of cops from around the country and as far away as Canada turned their backs on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio during the funeral of Officer Rafael Ramos, the NYPD officer shot to death alongside his partner Wenjian Liu by a deranged gunman, they fired the first salvo in a carefully coordinated political operation aimed at discrediting the liberal mayor and shattering the ongoing anti-police brutality protest movement. AlterNet has obtained emails revealing plans to organize a series of anti-de Blasio protests around the city until the summer of 2015. Billed as a non-partisan movement in support of “the men and women of the NYPD,” the protests are being orchestrated by a cast of NYPD union bosses and local Republican activists allied with Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor who recently called on de Blasio to “say you’re sorry to [NYPD officers] for having created a false impression of them.”

Off Duty Black Officers Say They Fear Fellow Cops

December 24, 2014 Michelle Conlin, www.Reuters.com Educate! police brutality, Police the Police, Racial Justice

What’s emerging now is that, within the thin blue line of the NYPD, there is another divide - between black and white officers. Reuters interviewed 25 African American male officers on the NYPD, 15 of whom are retired and 10 of whom are still serving. All but one said that, when off duty and out of uniform, they had been victims of racial profiling, which refers to using race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed a crime. The officers said this included being pulled over for no reason, having their heads slammed against their cars, getting guns brandished in their faces, being thrown into prison vans and experiencing stop and frisks while shopping. The majority of the officers said they had been pulled over multiple times while driving. Five had had guns pulled on them.

NY Protests Continue Despite Mayor’s Plea

December 24, 2014 Lily Workneh and Sebastian Murdock, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! police brutality, Police the Police, Racial Justice

Hundreds of protesters gathered in New York City Tuesday evening, showing they don’t plan to halt demonstrations, despite Mayor Bill de Blasio’s call to suspend their actions until the two NYPD officers killed over the weekend have been laid to rest. About 300 demonstrators clogged city streets after gathering at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, proceeding as they'd planned weeks earlier. Followed by a trail of cops, they marched uptown toward Harlem, holding signs that expressed condolences to the families of the slain officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, while openly criticizing de Blasio's request to pause protests. "Let's make sure they hear us!" an organizer shouted on a megaphone as the crowd gathered outside the 125th Street police precinct.

We Will Not Be Silent

December 23, 2014 Ferguson Action, www.fergusonaction.com Resist! Ferguson, NYPD, police brutality, Police the Police

Activists issued a scathing statement this afternoon in response to recent attempts by the NYPD to silence the efforts of citizens seeking justice for victims of police violence. The letter, drafted by Ferguson Action, and cosigned by over a dozen grassroots organizations takes aim at PBA president Patrick Lynch and Commissioner Bratton for their reckless attempts to conflate constitutionally protected protest activities with the tragic murders of officers Ramos and Liu: “The events of this weekend are tragic. We renew our condolences to the families and friends of those injured and killed this weekend. As those who stand with the victims of police violence, we know all too well the deep sense of loss that a community feels when they lose a loved one."

Admission By Ferguson Prosecutor Could Restart Case Against Wilson

December 23, 2014 Judd Legum, www.nationofchange.org Organize! Ferguson, Law, Mike Brown, Police the Police

Ferguson prosecutor Bob McCulloch admitted that he presented evidence he knew to be false to the grand jury considering charges against Darren Wilson. In an interview with radio station KTRS on Friday, McCulloch said that he decided to present witnesses that were “clearly not telling the truth” to the grand jury. Specifically, McCulloch acknowledged he permitted a woman who “clearly wasn’t present when this occurred” to testify as an eyewitness to the grand jury for several hours. The woman, Sandra McElroy, testified that Michael Brown charged at Wilson “like a football player, head down,” supporting Wilson’s claim that he killed Brown in self-defense. McElroy, according to a detailed investigation by The Smoking Gun, suffers from bipolar disorder but is not receiving treatment and has a history of making racist remarks.

Slimy Baltimore FOX Affiliate Caught Faking “Kill A Cop” Protest Chant

December 23, 2014 Miserable Shitehawk, www.gawker.com Educate! Journalism, Media, police brutality, Police the Police

Last night, Baltimore's WBFF aired a video of protesters chanting "kill a cop"– evidence, it claimed, of murderously violent rhetoric on the part of anti-brutality protesters in Washington, D.C. The only problem? The protesters weren't chanting "kill a cop" at all, and there's video evidence to prove it. The current national pastime appears to be constructing elaborate ways of laying responsibility for recent police shootings at the feet of anti-police-brutality protesters. This, of course, is bullshit. Faced with the daunting task of shifting blame for broad and escalating distrust of police away from the murderous bastards themselves and onto mostly non-violent activists, our insanely cynical news media has been forced to dig deep into their bag of tricks.

Los Angeles Police Will Get Body Cameras

December 18, 2014 Matt Ferner, www.huffingtonpost.com Organize! Los Angeles, police brutality, Police the Police

Every Los Angeles police officer will soon be equipped with a body camera, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Tuesday. Garcetti said at a press conference that the department will buy 7,000 on-body cameras for Los Angeles Police Department officers to expand transparency and accountability. "The trust between a community and its police department can be eroded in a single moment," Garcetti said. "Trust is built on transparency." The announcement comes two weeks after President Barack Obama announced a $363 million package that includes $75 million to pay half the cost of 50,000 officer-mounted cameras. The technology has been widely endorsed as a reform following the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager killed by Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson in August.

Why Cop Watching Is Still A Game Changer Despite Garner Decision

December 11, 2014 Carima Townes and Erica Hellerstein, www.mintpressnews.com Resist! Ferguson, Media, police brutality, Police the Police

Carrying the torch of the original Copwatch through teaching workshops and camera distribution, We Copwatch is spearheaded by Whitt, Crawford, and Blair Crawford, “a Black Panther who lived through COINTELPRO era,” according to the organization’s website. Since his first encounter with Crawford, Whitt has been a key force in getting Cop Watch off the ground in Ferguson, and has since named the program the Canfield Watchmen. We Copwatch has a number of objectives. In addition to filming police, educating people about their civil rights when questioned, stopped, and detained by law enforcement is another goal. Cop Watch now hosts “know your rights” hour-long training sessions.

St. Louis Cop: ‘Whole System Is Guilty’

December 8, 2014 Redditt Hudson, www.washingtonpost.com Educate! Human Rights, police brutality, Police the Police, Racial Justice

Unfortunately, I don’t think better training alone will reduce police brutality. My fellow officers and I took plenty of classes on racial sensitivity and on limiting the use of force. The problem is that cops aren’t held accountable for their actions, and they know it. These officers violate rights with impunity. They know there’s a different criminal justice system for civilians and police. Even when officers get caught, they know they’ll be investigated by their friends, and put on paid leave. My colleagues would laughingly refer to this as a free vacation. It isn’t a punishment. And excessive force is almost always deemed acceptable in our courts and among our grand juries. Prosecutors are tight with law enforcement, and share the same values and ideas. The number of people in uniform who will knowingly and maliciously violate your human rights is huge. At the Ferguson protests, people are chanting, “The whole damn system is guilty as hell.” I agree, and we have a lot of work to do.

Disturbing Findings By DOJ Of City Police Forces

December 8, 2014 Nick Wing, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Eric Holder, Ferguson, Law, police brutality, Police the Police

On Thursday, the Justice Department released the results of a 20-month investigationinto the use of force by Cleveland police. The review was unequivocally damning, finding the department responsible for an alarming pattern of excessive and sometimes deadly force, as well as other forms of misconduct and a general failure among supervisors to respond to this behavior. The Justice Department doesn't bring a case against state or local police unless it has reason to believe officers are systematically depriving citizens of their rights -- which means reviews are often compelled by particularly egregious allegations of law enforcement violations, or at the request of an official or a group that has collected complaints from the community.

National Day Of Action On Police BrutalityFor MLK Day

December 6, 2014 Faraji Muhammad, Kamau Franklin and Sharmini Peries, www.therealnews.com Organize! Ferguson, police brutality, Police the Police, Racial Justice

I think many folks are not surprised by the outcome. And recently I've been saying to folks clearly that we should stop saying that the American criminal justice system is broken, because it's not broken. It's working the way it was intended to work. It was up to us in the organizing community and other communities to make changes to that system. But that system is working the way it was built to work. And like you said, I have been around, unfortunately, for these decisions in terms of my activist life since the Rodney King fiasco back in the early '90s and that was caught on videotape.

Whitey To Whitey: White Privilege Needs To Change

December 6, 2014 Daniel Patrick Welch, www.bellaciao.org Educate! police brutality, Police the Police, Racial Justice

White Americans have essentially never internalized the Kenner Report. Assembled by Lyndon Johnson to address what was laughably referred to as the Negro Problem, the panel very quickly saw that this was a joke. There is no Negro Problem in the US, but rather a white people problem. FIFTY years ago (let that sink in), it opined, "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black and one white—separate and unequal…Discrimination and segregation have long permeated much of American life; they now threaten the future of every American." The report explained that the race riots were rooted in segregation, inadequate housing, poor access to quality education, systematic police violence, and labor market exclusion. For these factors, the report concluded, "White racism is essentially responsible."

Cop Who Killed Garner Sued By African Americans Three Times For Abuse

December 6, 2014 Kevin McCoy, www.thv11.com Educate! Eric Garner, Law, NYPD, police brutality, Police the Police

The Garner case wasn't the first time Pantaleo, 29, was accused of misconduct, however. Darren Collins and Tommy Rice alleged in a 2013 federal court lawsuit that Pantaleo and at least four other officers subjected them to "humiliating and unlawful strip searches in public view" after handcuffing them during a March 2012 arrest on Staten Island. The court complaint charged that the cops, searching for illegal drugs, "pulled down the plaintiffs' pants and underwear, and touched and searched their genital areas, or stood by while this was done in their presence." Pantaleo and three of the officers repeated the searches after they took the suspects to Staten Island's 120th police precinct, the complaint alleged.

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