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Police violence

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

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

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

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.

New App For Police Encounters By The ACLU

By the ACLU of Maryland. Denial is over. Videos of police encounters are changing perceptions about biased policing and police brutality and sparking reform of police practices. That's why the ACLU has launched Mobile Justice, an app that makes it easy for you to record interactions with police. It'll be available for download in Maryland, as well as 10 more states on Friday, November 13! The Mobile Justice app (for iPhone and Android) will allow you to take secure video of police interactions and send it to the ACLU so it cannot be deleted or lost if your phone is confiscated by police. It will also have an intake survey where you can describe the details of the incident, and a Know Your Rights section that offers an overview of your rights when stopped by law enforcement.

Black Lives Matter. NYC Shut It Down: The Grand Central Crew

By Staff for NYC Shut It Down. NYC Shut It Down (a.k.a. Grand Central Crew) is a NYC-based direct action organization in solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement. We are the organizers of the weekly #PeoplesMonday demonstrations that honor a different victim of police violence every week. We demand an end to unaccountable police violence and criminalization of daily life. Every Monday since January NYC Shut It Down has taken to the streets of NYC, forcing attention to the ever-growing Black Lives Matter movement and the struggle for Black liberation. Through our weekly‪#‎PeoplesMonday‬ actions, NYC Shut It Down highlights different cases of police brutality against people of color. Some stories, like those of Sean Bell, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice are highly publicized. Other stories receive little to no media attention. It is our duty to amplify these stories and we need your help to do that!

AP Investigation: 1,000 Cops Fired For Sexual Assaults

By Matt Sedensky and Nomaan Merchant for AP - In a yearlong investigation of sexual misconduct by U.S. law enforcement, The Associated Press uncovered about 1,000 officers who lost their badges in a six-year period for rape, sodomy and other sexual assault; sex crimes that included possession of child pornography; or sexual misconduct such as propositioning citizens or having consensual but prohibited on-duty intercourse. The number is unquestionably an undercount because it represents only those officers whose licenses to work in law enforcement were revoked, and not all states take such action. California and New York - with several of the nation's largest law enforcement agencies - offered no records because they have no statewide system to decertify officers for misconduct. And even among states that provided records, some reported no officers removed for sexual misdeeds even though cases were identified via news stories or court records.

Hillary Clinton Speech Interrupted By Black Student Activists

By Julia Craven for Huffington Post - Hillary Clinton was drowned out by student activists while introducing her criminal justice reform platform in Atlanta on Friday. Two of the student activists who interrupted Hillary Clinton's rally Friday at Clark Atlanta University said the title of the event -- "African Americans for Hillary" -- explains why they decided to drown out the presidential candidate's remarks. "That raises a question, because I'm wondering, why it isn't Hillary for African Americans?" Avery Jackson, one of the students, told The Huffington Post. "Because that's the issue. She continues to exploit the spaces that black people value." "She doesn't really express the centering and prioritizing of black issues, which are at the root American issues," he continued. "I think we see that with the campaign -- that she sees the issues of black people outside of the American agenda." Clinton was at the university to unveil her criminal justice reform plan. She has been heavily criticized during the campaign for her past support for tough-on-crime initiatives that facilitated mass incarceration.

Albany Rally for Justice for Dontay Ivy Tazed To Death By Police

By Chris Churchil for the Albany Times-Union - As part of a remedial program ordered by the court, here’s what New York City officers are being told by their superiors: “In order to conduct a stop, an officer must have individualized, reasonable suspicion that the person stopped has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a felony or penal law misdemeanor.” Also, “the officer must be able to articulate facts establishing a minimal level of objective justification for making the stop, which means more than a mere suspicion or a hunch. ‘Furtive movements’ or mere presence in a high-crime area are insufficient bases for a stop or frisk.” Well, the officers involved in Ivy’s stop have said his unusual movements and decision to wear a jacket — on a 26 degree night, no less — are the reasons they decided to stop and question him. In short, they had a hunch that he might be carrying a gun. Which means that the officers did, in fact, do something wrong — and do something wrong every day in Albany.

Newsletter – Chipping Away At The System

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese for Popular Resistance - The weekly newsletter: The forces that work to maintain the status quo, to protect the oppressors and the profiteers, are powerful, but everywhere there are people chipping away at the pillars that prop up the current systems, exposing truths and forcing changes. This week, we highlight some of these struggles with the hope that we will learn from them. Issues covered include (1) The tide is shifting on mass incarceration; (2) Fighting back when public services under attack; (3) The climate crisis will not be solved by corporate lobbyists and (3) New Video Tools: Acronym TV, Empire Files and Act Out! It is essential that we use the tools we have - our own media, the legal system and organized and mobilized resistance - to continue to expose truth, fight injustice and create new systems that build the world we need. Together, can build a powerful force.

France: Probe On Police Killing Of Activist Stalls Amid Scandal

By Staff for Telesur - This was the first time that police repression killed a protester under a Socialist Party government in France. Almost one year after the activist's death, the investigation has not moved an inch further since the police handed its conclusions to the judge in March, according to a shocking revelation issued by Le Monde on Friday; their version conveniently coincides with the government’s initial statement that denied any error from the police officials. Remi Fraisse, a 21 year-old botanist, died on Oct. 25 around 2 a.m. local time, shortly after a military grenade hit his back while he was protesting with other environmental activists against the highly-controversial building of a dam in Sivens, in the southwestern department of Tarn. Yet, according to Le Monde, which gained access to the report the police investigative body handed in March to the judge, the investigation not only stagnates, but “worse: it retrocedes.”

#RiseUpOctober Mass Protest Against Police Violence

By Staff for Popular Resistance - #RiseUpOctober held a series of days of mass protests against police violence. The largest event on Saturday came one day after demonstrators gathered in Queens to protest Rikers Island, saying it should be shut down, according to a Bronx news station. About a dozen protesters were arrested outside the jail’s entrance Friday. Activists and concerned citizens marched the streets of Manhattan in New York City Saturday as part of “Rise Up October,” a mass demonstration to protest police brutality in the United States. A number of protesters were reportedly arrested, but it wasn’t immediately clear what the charges were. According to a tweet, a police officer allegedly smacked the cell phone out of the hand of the first woman arrested. It was not immediately clear how many protesters marched the streets, which were filled with chants of “justice now” and signs saying “Stop police terror!” and “Which side are you on.”

RiseUpOctober STOP Police Terror! Begins Thursday

By Rise Up October - "No More Stolen Lives: Say Their Names" will bring together some 40 families from across the U.S. who’ve lost loved ones to police violence. They will be joined by prominent voices of conscience in love, remembrance, and defiance to say THIS MUST STOP!” "No More Stolen Lives: Say Their Names" begins RiseUpOctober -- three days of mass resistance and acts of conscience to STOP Police Terror! and draw a line throughout society: "Which Side Are You On? Three days aimed at nothing less than changing “the whole social landscape to the point where more people take initiative and make it unmistakably clear that they refuse to live in a society that sanctions this outrage,” as actor Mark Ruffalo put it in a support statement.

Next Week – #RiseUpOctober To Stop Police Terror

By Carl Dix for Stop Police Terror - We are just over a week away from #RiseUpOctober -- three powerful days of action to STOP POLICE TERROR! This is so urgent and so important. Two new reports were just released trying to justify the police murder of 12 year old Tamir Rice! Also, this past weekend, tens of thousands of people went to DC as part of "Justice Or Else." While the diversity and breadth of people joining together in Rise Up October certainly have different views on what went down in DC with "Justice or Else." Momentum is building in many ways -- last week we had a packed (more than 550 people, mainly students) event at Columbia University calling for #RiseUpOctober featuring Eve Ensler, Cornel West, Kimberle Crenshaw, Nicholas Heyward, Jamal Joseph and me.

US Attorney General Says ‘No’ To Police Reports On Killings

By Ciara McCarthy for the Guardian - Attorney general Loretta Lynch says the federal government should not require police to report fatal shootings of civilians, sharply diverging from her predecessor Eric Holder’s stance on police killings. In a conversation with NBC journalist Chuck Todd on a range of criminal justice issues, Lynch said on Thursday that she does not support a federal mandate to report people killed by police. “One of the things we are focusing on at the Department of Justice is not trying to reach down from Washington and dictate to every local department how they should handle the minutia of record keeping, but we are stressing to them that these records must be kept,” she said at the Washington Ideas Forum, hosted by AtlanticLIVE and the Aspen Institute.

On 4th Anniversary OWS Takes To The Streets

By Ashoka Jegroo for Waging Nonviolence - Hundreds of protesters in New York City took to the streets on September 17 in a variety of actions against racism, gentrification and police brutality. The day marked the fourth anniversary of Occupy Wall Street with actions taking place in at least three boroughs. “We had a day of action that was around racism, police brutality and anti-gentrification specifically because we needed to have a way to be very intersectional about all of what’s happening in our communities,” said Imani Henry, an organizer with Equality For Flatbush. “Gentrification is about landlords, corporations, the de Blasio administration, [Brooklyn Borough President] Eric Adams, and every borough president who is allowing developers into our neighborhood. It’s about community boards, re-zoning issues and struggles that we never ask for. And it’s also about the cops occupying our neighborhoods.”
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