Violence

Police Response In Ferguson Rooted In Systemic Violence And Militarism

August 27, 2014 Brian Trautman, www.commondreams.org Educate! Ferguson, militarism, Violence

The police response to public protests in Ferguson, Missouri in the wake of the deadly August 9 shooting of Michael Brown, Jr., an unarmed eighteen-year-old black man killed by a white police officer, was a prime illustration of the hyper-aggressive nature of policing in America today. The residents of Ferguson fed up with hostile and abusive police behavior continue to flood the streets to demand justice for Mike Brown and other victims of police brutality. They have been joined in solidarity by people of conscience in other cities (e.g., Oakland, NYC). Their anger and frustration was exacerbated by the heavy-handed tactics used against the mostly peaceful protestors in Ferguson during the first week or so of the demonstrations – tear gas, rubber bullets, smoke, deafening sirens as well as assault rifles fixed on protestors were some of the violent methods employed by law enforcement. In addition, a mandatory curfew imposed by the Missouri governor, verbal threats of physical harm from police, and arrests of journalists, among other ill-advised and counterproductive reactions, only escalated the tensions between protestors and police. The police action in Ferguson sparked a much-needed and long overdue national discussion about the rise of the police-industrial complex. One important outcome of this conversation has been an increased awareness among the American public of how local and state police became armed with equipment meant for war.

How Does Someone Shoot Themself In The Chest While Handcuffed?

August 27, 2014 Justin King, www.theantimedia.org Educate! Louisiana, Police, Violence

The original story from Iberia Parish was that 22-year-old Victor White III was apparently unable to cope with the thought of a simple possession charge, pulled a handgun from somewhere while handcuffed in the backseat of a patrol car, and shot himself in the back while the Deputy had conveniently left him unattended. On its face, this story is utterly absurd. Now the coroner has released the autopsy which states that White wasn’t shot in the back. He was shot in the chest from the right side, but missed his right lung, and the round exited the left side of his body after perforating his left lung. The bullet, after exiting the torso, injured White’s left arm. This places the weapon slightly to the front of White and put the bullet on a path that runs parallel to the ground. So to combine these stories with a quick recap, a church-going man arrested for a relatively minor charge managed to will a firearm into existence out of thin air while sitting in the back of a patrol car. Then in a feat that would make Stretch Armstrong jealous, he managed to shoot himself in the chest despite the fact that his hands were cuffed behind his back and he was seated within the tight confines of the rear of the patrol car. Not the abdomen, the chest. That’s the upper part of the front torso. To add insult to improbability, the coroner ruled the death a suicide.

How The Brutalized Become Brutal

August 26, 2014 Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com Educate! Psychology, Terrorism, Violence, Wars and Militarism

The horrific pictures of the beheading of American reporter James Foley, the images of executions of alleged collaborators in Gaza and the bullet-ridden bodies left behind in Iraq by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant are the end of a story, not the beginning. They are the result of years, at times decades, of the random violence, brutal repression and collective humiliation the United States has inflicted on others. Our terror is delivered to the wretched of the earth with industrial weapons. It is, to us, invisible. We do not stand over the decapitated and eviscerated bodies left behind on city and village streets by our missiles, drones and fighter jets. We do not listen to the wails and shrieks of parents embracing the shattered bodies of their children. We do not see the survivors of air attacks bury their mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. We are not conscious of the long night of collective humiliation, repression and powerlessness that characterizes existence in Israel’s occupied territories, Iraq and Afghanistan. We do not see the boiling anger that war and injustice turn into a caldron of hate over time. We are not aware of the very natural lust for revenge against those who carry out or symbolize this oppression. We see only the final pyrotechnics of terror, the shocking moment when the rage erupts into an inchoate fury and the murder of innocents. And, willfully ignorant, we do not understand our own complicity. We self-righteously condemn the killers as subhuman savages who deserve more of the violence that created them. This is a recipe for endless terror.

Police Say Tasing 8-Year-Old Native Girl Was Justified, Family Sues

August 25, 2014 Vincent Schilling, www.indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com Organize! Children, Native Americans, Police, Violence

In October 2013, An 8 year old Rosebud Sioux girl was shot by a stun gun when Pierre Police arrived on scene and were not able to obtain a paring knife the young girl was holding. In the days that followed, the family of the little girl reported she was suffering from trauma, while the Pierre Police Chief Bob Granpre said the actions of the Police were justified. Since the incident, family members have secured the use of Dana Hanna and Patrick Duffy as attorneys in the South Dakota area and the tribe has spoken out against the incident. The Pierre police after releasing initial findings will no longer offer comment on the matter after inquiries by ICTMN. Rose Stenstrom, the grandmother of the little girl and a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribal council, says she was upset that her little granddaughter was a delightful and talkative little girl who some media outlets made out to be a monster. “My granddaughter is really just a friendly little girl,” says Stenstrom. “She talks a lot. Because she likes to talk, you could change her mind really easy. I have been around her, she is not anywhere near what people describe her as. They made her out to be a little monster and she is not.” Stenstrom also said the response to the original situation was not handled with any sort of professionalism.

Police Brutality Against Black And Brown People

August 25, 2014 Gyasi Ross, www.indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com Educate! Native Americans, Police, Violence

Native people are the most loving people in the world. And it makes sense—so many of us have seen this movie before. We got our own problems, right? Still, ever since the Michael Brown tragedy in Ferguson, Missouri, I’ve received hundreds of Facebook messages and emails—Native people understanding the connection between black folks’ interaction with law enforcement and Native folks’ interaction with law enforcement. The Natives who’ve contacted me seem to know, “We’re not saying all police officers are bad. Heck, most are ok.” But those Natives know that when things do go haywire and a police officer does do something bad to someone, it’s usually someone brown. And when that brown-skinned person is killed or hurt badly, it’s usually for something small. Insignificant. Something that doesn’t deserve deadly force. Like allegedly stealing cigars. That’s rough. But to quote Bill Murrary in Stripes, “That’s the fact, Jack!”

The Uncivil War Escalating Across America

August 25, 2014 Michael Payne, www.nationofchange.org Educate! Ferguson, Police, Unrest, Violence

Americans are used to this nation’s military being engaged in wars across the world; wars against nations and enemies “over there.” But what we are not at all used to is what is happening here in America today as we witness more and more incidents of overly aggressive police actions using deadly force in situations that simply do not call for anything of the kind. I’m talking about what might accurately be described as an uncivil war. If you look up the definition of uncivil you will find that it means barbarous, uncivilized conduct, not conducive to civic harmony and welfare. Well those words could certainly be used to describe the many recent incidents involving extremely violent measures taken by police in this country against its very own citizens. Americans watch with an increasing sense of apprehension at what just happened in Ferguson, Missouri where Michael Brown, a black teenager, was shot and killed by a police officer who found him walking down the middle of the street and then confronted him. The latest reports indicate that this young man was shot six times, twice in the head. That community is on the verge of exploding, to the point that the Missouri National Guard has now been mobilized; and that’s another great mistake.

Police Killing Of Yet Another Black Man Warrants Probe

August 23, 2014 Mark Weisbrot, www.truth-out.org Organize! Ferguson, Police, Violence

It is disappointing to see that there has not been more public outrage - especially in the major media - about the killing of Kajieme Powell. He was shot by St. Louis police on Tuesday just a few miles from where Michael Brown was gunned down. A very clear video of the entire incident was released yesterday, and as the Huffington Post accurately reported, it shows a very different story than the one told by St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson the day before. The video shows that the police pulled up over the curb, just a few yards from where Powell was standing and immediately drew their guns as they jumped out of the van. Within 15 seconds of their van arriving, they were shooting him. The first three shots sent him falling to the ground. Was it necessary to pump 6 more bullets into him, most of them when he was sprawled on the pavement, to make sure that he would die? This is a question that should be formally investigated. Then they tried to handcuff him though he was practically dead already. The police will not be charged with a crime, since Powell allegedly had a knife, and they claim to have recovered one from the scene.

Nicholas Heyward Sr. On The Killing Of His Son By NYPD

August 23, 2014 Josmar Trujillo, www.truth-out.org Educate! NYPD, Police, Politics, Violence

Twenty years ago this September, New York Police Department housing cop Brian George shot and killed 13-year-old Nicholas Heyward Jr. The boy was playing with a toy guy with other kids from the housing projects in Brooklyn where they lived when he and George met in the staircase. The City and the district attorney, Charles Hynes, argued that George mistook the toy gun for a real one and did not bring charges against George. Heyward's family and the kids playing with the young boy insisted he dropped the gun before the shots were fired. George never served a day in jail for the death, but the incident sparked 20 years of activism by Heyward's father, Nicholas Heyward Sr. Today, Hynes is facing a grand jury probe for corruption. I met Heyward Sr. at several policing-reform events over the years and worked with him closely as we campaigned against the appointment and return of Bill Bratton to head the NYPD. Bratton was NYPD commissioner at the time Heyward Jr. was killed. He also famously called Heyward and the mothers of Anthony Rosario and Anthony Baez - who joined him as the well-known parent group Parents Against Police Brutality - a "bunch of fools" during an infamous 1995 town hall meeting in the Bronx alongside then-mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Israel’s Supporters: Where Do You Draw the Line?

August 22, 2014 Fred Branfman, www.alternet.org Educate! Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Violence, Wars and Militarism

Dear U.S. supporters of Israel in Gaza: If you believed the IDF could destroy Hamas by employing portable gas chambers or chemical weapons to publicly gas over 1,400 Gazan civilians, including 400 children, chosen at random, would you favor doing so? I guess not. Perhaps you even feel insulted at the suggestion that you might. But this raises a basic question: if you would not favor gassing Palestinan civilians, how do you justify your support for blowing them to bits? The controversial issue is not Israel trying to destroy Hamas tunnels. Nor is it the attempt to destroy rockets, as if the Israelis can claim that they reasonably suspected the 46-48,000 U.N.-estimated buildings they either partially or totally destroyed contained rockets. Nor is it rightfully condemning Hamas for rocketing civilian targets as well. As even long-term apologists for Israeli violence like the New Republic’s Leon Wieseltier acknowledge, the issue is massive Israeli bombing and shelling of the civilian infrastructure in Gaza, which is wholly disproportionate to combatting tunnels and/or rockets.

Police To Al Jazeera Journalist Near Ferguson: ‘I’ll Bust Your Head’

August 22, 2014 Aaron Ernst, www.aljazeera.com Educate! Ferguson, Journalism, Police, Violence

It’s not every day that a police officer tells you he’s going to bust your head open. The most exasperating thing about almost being arrested near Ferguson, Missouri, for doing my job as a journalist — reporting on tensions among citizens and law enforcement here — was my complete inability to fight back against what was an obvious abuse of police authority. The incident began on Thursday night when “America Tonight” director of photography Jung Park, anchor Joie Chen and I hopped in a taxi to interview Umar Lee, a cab driver and columnist who knows the racial history of North St. Louis County, which has become the focus of worldwide media attention. As we drove near Ferguson’s border with the neighboring town of Kinloch, JP was recording Lee, and I was recording Joie. When the interview was over, we got out of the cab to record a shot of it driving by. Two Kinloch officers in a patrol car stopped and asked what we were doing. I identified JP and myself as a cameraman and producer working for Al Jazeera America for “America Tonight.” The officer who was driving told us to leave the area. When we asked why, he said only that it wasn’t safe to be there and we had to leave. Puzzled, we got in the cab and did as requested. A little farther down the road, we saw a sign that JP wanted to shoot for our story, so we stopped and again got out.

Ferguson Violence Exposes America’s Political Decay

August 22, 2014 Thomas Adams, www.theage.com Educate! Ferguson, Housing, Militarization, Police, Violence

For anyone with a consciousness of American history, the events of the last week and a half in Ferguson, Missouri, a predominately African-American suburb outside of St. Louis, should seem all too familiar. A police officer murders an unarmed black man. As days go by and more information on the shooting is released, residents take to the streets to protest. Their protests are met with force utterly disproportionate to a free society. In response, the protests turn sporadically violent themselves, producing and even more violent response on the part of authorities. Harlem, 1943; Philadelphia and Rochester, 1964; Watts (Los Angeles), 1965; Newark, 1967; Camden, 1971; Tampa, 1987 and 1989; Washington, D.C., 1991; Los Angeles, 1992; Cincinnati, 2001; Benton Harbor (Southwest Michigan), 2003; Brooklyn, 2013 - all these incidents, and many others, contain the basic contours of the situation in Ferguson. By now many in the United States and across the world have weighed in on the underlying causes of the escalating violence in Ferguson. Analysts have rightly pointed out the massive build-up in American police militarisation, the depths of poverty that are endemic to many American neighbourhoods, a broad culture that equates young African-American men with criminality, a failed war on drugs that has led to the incarceration of generations of the American poor and the corresponding transformation of much of urban America into a police state.

Autopsy In Case Of Ezell Ford Put On Hold

August 20, 2014 Matt Ferner, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! California, Police, Protest, Violence

The Los Angeles Police Department has delayed the release of a pending autopsy report for Ezell Ford, the 25-year-old unarmed black man with mental illness who an officer fatally shot last week in a South L.A. neighborhood. "Pending further investigative and forensic analysis, the LAPD Force Investigation Division investigators have requested that The Los Angeles County Coroner place an investigative hold on the pending autopsy report," read an LAPD press release issued Monday. LAPD Commander Andrew Smith told Southern California public radio station KPCC that investigative holds are common in cases that are currently ongoing and and in active investigations, in order to keep witness testimony from being tainted. “They could use information from the autopsy to give credibility to their story,” Smith said. Ed Winter, the assistant chief of investigation at the coroner's office, told The Huffington Post that he didn't know how long the hold would last. The delay on the Ford autopsy report comes after two autopsy reports were released regarding the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown by Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson. The autopsy revealed Brown was shot six times.

The Killing Of Black Men Continues

August 20, 2014 Ron Daniels, www.ibw21.org Educate! Mass Incarceration, Police, Racism, Violence

When will it stop? The police killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, coming on the heals of the killing of Eric Garner, an unarmed Black man by a policeman’s choke hold in Staten Island, New York, is yet another painful, traumatic reminder of the long history of occupation, torture, abuse and killing of Black people in America, particularly Black men. Indeed, within hours of the killing of Michael Brown, Ezell Ford, an unarmed Black man with a history of mental problems, was killed in Los Angeles under suspicious circumstances. It doesn’t matter that there is an African American President of the United States or that Blacks are mayors of major American cities, run Fortune 500 companies or are pace setters as high paid and adored hip hop moguls, entertainers and athletes; the killing of Black men continues. Once again legions of Black people and people of conscience and goodwill are in the streets in Ferguson, Missouri and in solidarity rallies across the country. But, to add insult to injury, in scenes reminiscent of the brutalizing of civil rights protesters in Birmingham and Selma in the 60’s, St. Louis County Police units with sharpshooters, sniper squads, mine-resistant trucks and a “Bearcat armored truck” unleashed a ferocious assault on peaceful marchers, firing tear gas, stun bombs and rubber bullets into the ranks of terrorized protesters. The whole nation and the world witnessed this vicious onslaught against the First Amendment by highly militarized police that looked more like soldiers on the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan than the suburb of a major American city. There was “shock and awe” throughout the land.

Part II: DoD Data Mining To Track, Kill Activists

August 20, 2014 Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, www.occupy.com Educate! Activism, Data, Politics, Violence

The Pentagon’s multimillion dollar Minerva research program to fund social science research for military applications includes a flagship project established in 2009 at Arizona State University (ASU) to examine “radical” and “counter-radical” Muslim movements in Southeast Asia, West Africa and Western Europe. The project’s "expert wisdom gathering tool," used by academics involved in the project to assess and rank the threat-level from organizations and civil society groups, set its sights on the UK, Germany, France, Europe generally, Nigeria, Niger, Senegal, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. Although purportedly designed to assess Islamic movements, among the 36 UK organizations targeted for ranking on the tool’s "radicalization" scale are several non-Muslim activist groups critical of US, British and Israeli foreign policy. A deeper analysis of the criteria used by the project to label organizations discloses serious deficiencies that tend to cast suspicion of propensity for violence on any group calling for radical social, political or religious change. Conflating violent and nonviolent "radicalism" Explaining the rationale behind the Minerva initiative, program director Dr. Erin Fitzgerald said, “Decreasing terrorism and political violence requires an understanding of the underlying forces that shape motivations and mobilize action. The vast majority of political movements – even only those with seemingly ‘radical’ political philosophies – do not turn violent or destabilize regional security; we want to understand what makes those leading to armed conflict different.”

Tear Gas Not The Only Thing Connecting Ferguson And Palestine

August 19, 2014 Ryan Rodrick Beiler, www.972mag.com Educate! Ferguson, Israel, Police, Protest, Tear Gas, Violence

The New York Times’ Robert Mackey recently tweeted a photo of the tear gas cartridges found on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, where police have been using the weapon against demonstrators angry at the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager. Both the cartridge and the tactics looked very familiar, and for good reason. Jamestown, PA’s CTS brand tear gas fired in #Ferguson tonight https://t.co/XwMO3tBuDp in the West Bank last week https://t.co/XNWlEDvqFF — Robert Mackey (@RobertMackey) August 18, 2014 A different tweet noted that the same brand of tear gas was used in Egypt’s Tahrir Square. As reported here last December, those shining shell casings, as well as the rubber-ball variety and spent stun grenades made by the same company, had decorated a tree in Bethlehem’s Manger Square at Christmastime as activists gathered those used by the Israeli military less than two kilometers away in Aida Refugee Camp and displayed them for holiday tourists.

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