Police violence

Police Chief Wants Officer Charged For Killing Unarmed Man

January 12, 2016 Carimah Townes, www.thinkprogress.org Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), killed by police, Los Angeles, Police violence

By Carimah Townes for Think Progress - Between 2000 and 2014, the LAPD shot an average of one person every week. Yet no officer has been charged for a fatal shooting in the last 15 years. If Police Chief Charlie Beck gets his way, that could change soon. Despite push-back from his colleagues, Beck has recommended that Officer Clifford Proctor be charged for shooting and killing an unarmed homeless man in Venice last year. Proctor and his partner said Brendon Glenn was harassing customers and confronted a bouncer. The officers claimed Proctor shot Glenn while he was reaching for one of their weapons. But sources who saw video surveillance of the shooting told the Los Angeles Times that the police officers had successfully brought Glenn down to the ground when Proctor walked away and fired the gun. According to the anonymous sources, Glenn tried to stand up and was struggling before he was killed, but did not act in a way that explained the shooting.

‘Failure To Supervise’ Goes All The Way To The Top

January 12, 2016 Kemi Alabi, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Eric Garner, killed by police, New York City (NYC), Police violence

By Kemi Alabi for The Huffington Post - My father, Eric Garner, was killed by New York Police Department officer Daniel Pantaleo a year and a half ago, but last week marks the department's first official charge of wrongdoing in his case. The charge was not made against Pantaleo, the officer who placed my father in a fatal -- and illegal -- chokehold, but against Sgt. Kizzy Adonis, one of two supervising officers at the scene. We know Sgt. Adonis wasn't even assigned on patrol during the incident. According to Ed Mullins, head of the sergeants' union, she "responded at her own initiative." She wasn't the borough or zone commander. Yet Sgt. Adonis, stripped of her gun and badge, is now being charged on four counts of "failure to supervise."

Pursuing Murder Indictment For Cop Who Killed Unarmed Vet

January 8, 2016 Jamiles Lartey and Ciara McCarthy, www.theguardian.com Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Georgia, killed by police, Police violence

By Jamiles Lartey and Ciara McCarthy for The Guardian - A prosecutor in Georgia is to seek two indictments for murder against a police officer who shot and killed Anthony Hill, an unarmed black man who was naked when he died. DeKalb district attorney Robert James said he would ask a grand jury to indict Officer Robert Olsen of the DeKalb County police department, accused of shooting Hill on 9 March last year while responding to a call of a man behaving erratically outside a suburban Atlanta apartment complex.

Top Chicago Lawyer Lied In Police Killing Trial, Resigns

January 6, 2016 Vishakha Sonawane, www.ibtimes.com Resist! Chicago, Corruption, Courts, killed by police, Police violence

By Vishakha Sonawane for IBT - Chicago’s top lawyer resigned Monday after a federal judge accused him of concealing evidence in a civil case about a fatal police shooting during a traffic stop in 2011. U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang’s remarks against Jordan Marsh came while the former dismissed a jury’s April 2015 verdict, which justified the police shooting. During trial, officers Raoul Mosqueda and Gildardo Sierra said they stopped Darius Pinex, a black man, because his car fit the description of a vehicle suspected of involvement in an earlier shooting. They said they shot Pinex after he did not follow orders and put his car in reverse.

Crowd Protests Fatal Police Shooting In Dearborn

January 6, 2016 Mark Hicks and James David Dickson, www.detroitnews.com Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), killed by police, Michigan, Police violence

By Mark Hicks and James David Dickson for The Detroit News - Dearborn — Chanting “no justice, no peace” and hoisting signs with messages such as “Black Lives Matter,” more than 100 demonstrators strode through Dearborn on Monday night, protesting the death last month of a Detroit man who was shot by a Dearborn police officer. Bundled against the frigid air, they marched past traffic and raised their voices alongside drumbeats to protest the death of Kevin Matthews as well as police practices they believe have contributed to other such deaths.

Chicago Police Torture Victims Receive $5.5 Million In Reparations

January 6, 2016 Staff, www.rawstory.com Resist! Chicago, Police violence, Torture

By Staff of Reuters - Nearly 60 people tortured by Chicago police decades ago have begun receiving $5.5 million in reparations from the city, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced on Tuesday. The news comes as the city faces renewed criticism for police treatment of minority suspects. Last May, aldermen in the nation’s third-largest city approved the payments to 57 people tortured by city police in the 1970s and 1980s and agreed to make other reparations such as a memorial to torture victims.

Tamir Rice’s Mother Calls Out ‘Corrupt’ Criminal Justice System

January 5, 2016 Lilly Workneh, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Courts, killed by police, Police violence, Racism, Tamir Rice

By Lilly Workneh for The Huffington Post - Samaria Rice said she is "mad as hell" over a grand jury's decision not to indict two Cleveland cops involved in the fatal shooting of her 12-year-old son Tamir. “Due to the corrupt system, I have a dead child. I felt as if breath has been taken out of my body once again," she told MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry Saturday."It's a struggle." Rookie patrolman Timothy Loehman shot Rice on Nov. 22, 2014 near a Cleveland recreation center. Rice, who had been playing with a toy pellet gun, died moments later.

Bayview Crowd Calls For Police Chief To Quit Over Death

December 6, 2015 Vivian Ho, www.sfgate.com Resist! Accountability, police brutality, Police violence, San Francisco

By Vivan Ho for the San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco, CA - A community meeting erupted into outrage Friday night as San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr attempted to explain the shooting death of a man by police in the Bayview neighborhood that drew ire nationwide after video of the incident was widely circulated on social media. (The video.) unnamed (6) Police Commission President Suzy Loftus (left), San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr and Bayview Station Capt. Raj Vaswani listen to the combative crowd at the town hall meeting. Dozens of community members packed a room at the City College of San Francisco southeast facility, calling for Suhr’s resignation as he told the crowd that officers fatally shot Mario Woods, 26, “in defense” of both themselves and bystanders at the scene. Woods died shortly after at least five officers fired at him about 15 times in the Bayview neighborhood about 4:30 p.m.Wednesday.

How One Of The Deadliest Police Forces In The US Stopped Shooting People

December 6, 2015 Daniel Hernandez, www.qz.com Educate! killed by police, Police violence

By Daniel Hernandez for Quartz. Experts would cite both of these cases as examples of “poor training, a lack of clear policies, and an unwillingness to discipline problem officers” in a six-part investigative series titled, “Deadly Force: When Las Vegas Police Shoot, and Kill,” by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Now, five years later, the department is a model for police reform. Despite an uptick in violence directed toward Vegas cops, there were zero deadly force incidents involving unarmed suspects in 2014. The number of officer-involved shootings has dropped significantly as well. In recent months, members of the NYPD, Baltimore police, as well as law enforcement agencies from Utah, Massachusetts, Albuquerque and even Australia have visited Metro to study its new training and accountability regimes. Here’s how Las Vegas police halted a trend in excessive force. Beyond that, the ACLU is cautiously optimistic that Las Vegas’s police reform effort is succeeding. “I think what happened in the police department here is they said, ‘This is it. This can’t go on anymore. We’re under the spotlight and the community is fed up so we have to do something different.’ That’s the path we’re on now.”

The Story Of The Deadliest Police Force In The U.S.

December 4, 2015 Jon Swaine and Oliver Laughland, www.theguardian.com Educate! killed by police, Police violence, Racism

By Jon Swaine and Oliver Laughland for the Guardian. In all, 13 people have been killed so far this year by law enforcement officers in Kern County, which has a population of just under 875,000. During the same period, nine people were killed by the NYPD across the five counties of New York City, where almost 10 times as many people live and about 23 times as many sworn law enforcement officers patrol. The deaths span from January to the early hours of last Sunday morning, when a man accused of firing at officers during a foot chase in downtown Bakersfield was shot and killed. One senior Bakersfield police officer has been involved in at least four deadly shootings in less than two years. Another officer separately shot dead three people within two months in 2010. Other law enforcement officers in Kern County have meanwhile been involved in deadly beatings of unarmed men, sex crimes against women and reckless car crashes resulting in criminal convictions. “They have some fine officers here, but unfortunately they have some bullies and thugs who often run the show,” Henry Mosier, who worked for the county as a public defender for a decade before his recent retirement, said in an interview.

Trial Of First Freddie Grey Officer Begins, Protesters Return

November 30, 2015 Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Baltimore, Freddie Grey, killed by police, Police violence

By Kevin Zeese for Popular Resistance. On Monday, November 30th, the trial of William G. Porter the first Baltimore police officer in the Freddie Grey killing began with jury selection. The Washington Post reports and other news reports all said that inside the courtroom protests could be heard/ The Post writes: "Chants from protesters standing outside in the cold, light rain filtered into the marbled courtroom: “We won’t stop until killer cops are in cell blocks.” Protesters were outside the courthouse in the morning and in the evening when court finished. The trial is expected to continue through mid-December. Protests are likely to occur throughout the trial. The Post reports "Sharon Black, 66, a retired registered nurse, stood among the demonstrators holding a yellow banner that read, 'No police terror; black lives matter.' She said that her group has been at the courthouse during each major development in the case. 'We’ve been out here, primarily to keep the pressure on.

Newsletter: Past And Present Myths Are Indivisible

November 29, 2015 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter Black Lives Matter (BLM), Climate Change, Climate Justice, COP21, Fight for 15, Guantanamo, Income inequality, Indigenous Rights, militarism, Our Walmart, Paris, Police violence, Racism, Student Activism, Thanksgiving, Wars and Militarism, Wealth Ineqaulity

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. This week two remarkable reports came out about US militarism. The first by James Lucas, documented that the US has killed 20 to 30 million people in 37 nations in wars since World War II. The second by Nicholas Davies showed the impacts of US militarism since 9/11 finding 120,000 air strikes in seven countries, occupation of Afghanistan for 14 years, Iraq for over 8 years, and destruction of Libya, Syria and Yemen, 1.6 million people killed, mostly civilians, and 59.5 million people driven from their homes.US military why did you kill my family This is quite a remarkable record. These reports coincided with the celebration of Thanksgiving. Popular Resistance published eight articles debunking the founding myths and highlighting reality of genocide against the Indigenous to take their land and slavery of Africans brought to the United States for free labor. There are deep problems in the US culture. They are built on myths that cover-up genocide, slavery, racism and poverty wages. All transformations begin with a revolution of the mind. We need to change the American consciousness.

Cash-Strapped Chicago Paid Half A Billion In Police Settlements Since 2004

November 29, 2015 Shaun King, www.dailykos.com Educate! Chicago, police brutality, Police violence

By Shaun King for Daily Kos. With 49 elementary schools closing this summer, with pensions being slashed, and with public services being cut all over Chicago, the city now admits it has paid out over $521 million in settlements and legal fees due to police violence, misconduct ,and abuse over the past 10 years alone—with a whopping 500 cases still pending. What's more, criminal justice experts say new lawsuits will surely keep filling the pipeline until the city addresses a so-called "code of silence" – where officers refuse to tell on each other for misbehavior – and a flawed disciplinary system that together allow misconduct to prosper. In all, the BGA found a total of $521.3 million has been spent to handle police misconduct-related lawsuits from 2004 to present day. The true cost, though, is even higher, as the BGA counted settlements and judgments, legal bills and other fees – but not less tangible expenses related to, say, insurance premiums, in-house lawyers and investigators, and the cost of incarcerating innocents.

#BlackLivesMatter Thanksgiving Dinner Outside MN Precinct

November 27, 2015 Staff, , www.ruptly.tv Resist! killed by police, Police abuse, Police violence, Racism

By Staff for Ruptly. Black Lives Matter activists gathered outside a Police station in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Thursday, to enjoy a Thanksgiving Day meal as protesters continue to demand justice for 24-year-old Jamar Clark, who was killed by a police officer on 15 November. The protesters, who have been blocking the streets outside the Fourth Precinct Police Department on Plymouth Avenue for the 12th day in a row, spent the holiday at the protest encampment with neighbours and supporters donating food in solidarity with the movement. Hundreds of people passed by the camp to receive their Thanksgiving day meal offered by volunteers despite the cold temperatures and snow. Ongoing protests, organised by the 'Black Lives Matter' movement, have been held daily outside the Minneapolis Police Department's Fourth Precinct building since the killing of Jamar Clark. Witnesses say the 24-year-old black man was shot by police execution-style while handcuffed, an account which the Minneapolis Police Department disputes.

Chicago Police Release Video Of Cop Shooting Teen 16 Times

November 25, 2015 Aviva Shen, www.thinkprogress.org Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Chicago, killed by police, police brutality, Police violence

By Aviva Shen for Think Progress - After a prolonged legal battle, Chicago police released a video of one of their officers, Jason Van Dyke, shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times Wednesday. The video shows McDonald carrying a small knife, walking away from Van Dyke before the officer opens fire. The entire shooting took about 15 seconds, and McDonald was lying on the ground for 13 of them. An officer appears to kick at McDonald’s body after shooting him. Van Dyke was finally charged with first degree murder more than a year after the shooting.

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