In attempt to capture a fuller picture of
police killings in the U.S., citizen and activist groups have started
compiling their own statistics through crime and media reports. One of
the most comprehensive projects to date is a website called Killed By Police.
The site logged nearly 1,500 police-involved deaths between January 1,
2014 and April 30, 2015 and included documentation for each incident.
What 16 Months Of Police Killings In The U.S. Looks Like
Showing posts with label Police. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Police. Show all posts
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
How Many St. Louis-Area Cops Are Members of "Patriot" Groups?
There are may questions one can ask concerning the Brown incident in Missouri. For me it boils down to this, "why was an unarmed (debated by some considering his size) individual shot at 11 times (hit by 6) by a trained police officer? Or simply, when did shoot to kill become public policy numero uno? (And yes I realize I am over simplifying it.)
For others, such as Adam Weinstein over at Gawker, the questions are much bigger: "Why is it that the liberty-loving, government-loathing patriots who have for so long warned of a tank-driving, brutal police state were so willing to put their lives on the line for a Cliven Bundy [who was breaking the law], but not a Ferguson, Missouri?" [Hint the answer is in the attached video.]
Two notables associated with the movement that remained "quiet" and nowhere to be found include:
Larry Pratt, who instead highlighted this article claiming that Michael Brown wasn’t unarmed because he was “young and strong.”
Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a Bundy ally who has bragged,
But not enough is being written about the inherent contradiction in Page's affiliations. Here was a police officer, shutting down media and largely peaceful demonstrators, participating in a heavy-handed, "militarized" law enforcement response on the streets of Ferguson... at the same time that he claimed kinship with a "patriot" group whose very stated mission is to prevent and resist militarized tyranny in the United States.
[,,,]
And yet. For all their delusions, the Oath Keepers seem tailor-made to counter the surreal overarmed police state that may have played a role in Michael Brown's death by cop in Ferguson, and that has ebbed and flowed through the streets there ever since. The oath that Oath Keepers keep is to disobey a set of orders they believe may be given by government authorities. Hence they swear, in part:
How Many St. Louis-Area Cops Are Members of "Patriot" Groups?
For others, such as Adam Weinstein over at Gawker, the questions are much bigger: "Why is it that the liberty-loving, government-loathing patriots who have for so long warned of a tank-driving, brutal police state were so willing to put their lives on the line for a Cliven Bundy [who was breaking the law], but not a Ferguson, Missouri?" [Hint the answer is in the attached video.]
Two notables associated with the movement that remained "quiet" and nowhere to be found include:
Larry Pratt, who instead highlighted this article claiming that Michael Brown wasn’t unarmed because he was “young and strong.”
Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a Bundy ally who has bragged,
"We want this military surplus so we have enough firepower to protect ourselves and the public," said Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was among the first in the nation to take advantage of free combat supplies.So is the so-called patriot movement for or against the government and its alleged over-reach? Based on their response, they don't even know what counts as government.
Included in the sheriff's arsenal: M-16s, a .50-caliber machine gun and a tank.
Arpaio said jail tents and armored SWAT vehicles have saved untold tax dollars. The tank is a display item, he added. And the .50-caliber?
"No, we haven't used it," the sheriff said. "But it's in the Batmobile, ready."
__
[,,,]
And yet. For all their delusions, the Oath Keepers seem tailor-made to counter the surreal overarmed police state that may have played a role in Michael Brown's death by cop in Ferguson, and that has ebbed and flowed through the streets there ever since. The oath that Oath Keepers keep is to disobey a set of orders they believe may be given by government authorities. Hence they swear, in part:
- We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.
- We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies.
- We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.
How Many St. Louis-Area Cops Are Members of "Patriot" Groups?
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Police Assault Teen So Violently During Search That His Testicles Burst | Alternet
"Later," the Inquirer wrote, Manning—a straight-A student with no criminal record—"can be seen on the ground in what [Police Commissioner Charles H.] Ramsey called a struggle with officers."
Manning's attorney Lewis Small told the Inquirer that after Manning's arrest, "a female officer grabbed the teen's genitals during a pat-down search and pulled, causing a testicle to rupture."
That a "pat-down search" could be so violent as to cause a boy's testicles to burst may seem like an anomaly. But this—and many other "frisks," which are legally allowed only on the outside of clothing—is not just a quick check for weapons. People do not hide guns beneath testicles. While we may not hear such stories very often, teenagers in areas where stop-and-frisk is common know that a penis grab is a regular part of the whole, degrading process.
Police Assault Teen So Violently During Search That His Testicles Burst | Alternet
Manning's attorney Lewis Small told the Inquirer that after Manning's arrest, "a female officer grabbed the teen's genitals during a pat-down search and pulled, causing a testicle to rupture."
That a "pat-down search" could be so violent as to cause a boy's testicles to burst may seem like an anomaly. But this—and many other "frisks," which are legally allowed only on the outside of clothing—is not just a quick check for weapons. People do not hide guns beneath testicles. While we may not hear such stories very often, teenagers in areas where stop-and-frisk is common know that a penis grab is a regular part of the whole, degrading process.
Police Assault Teen So Violently During Search That His Testicles Burst | Alternet
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Sarah Stillman: The Use and Abuse of Civil Forfeiture : The New Yorker
On a bright Thursday afternoon in 2007, Jennifer Boatright, a waitress at a Houston bar-and-grill, drove with her two young sons and her boyfriend, Ron Henderson, on U.S. 59 toward Linden, Henderson’s home town, near the Texas-Louisiana border. They made the trip every April, at the first signs of spring, to walk the local wildflower trails and spend time with Henderson’s father. This year, they’d decided to buy a used car in Linden, which had plenty for sale, and so they bundled their cash savings in their car’s center console. Just after dusk, they passed a sign that read “Welcome to Tenaha: A little town with BIG Potential!”
They pulled into a mini-mart for snacks. When they returned to the highway ten minutes later, Boatright, a honey-blond “Texas redneck from Lubbock,” by her own reckoning, and Henderson, who is Latino, noticed something strange. The same police car that their eleven-year-old had admired in the mini-mart parking lot was trailing them. Near the city limits, a tall, bull-shouldered officer named Barry Washington pulled them over.
He asked if Henderson knew that he’d been driving in the left lane for more than half a mile without passing.
No, Henderson replied. He said he’d moved into the left lane so that the police car could make its way onto the highway.
Were there any drugs in the car? When Henderson and Boatright said no, the officer asked if he and his partner could search the car.
The officers found the couple’s cash and a marbled-glass pipe that Boatright said was a gift for her sister-in-law, and escorted them across town to the police station. In a corner there, two tables were heaped with jewelry, DVD players, cell phones, and the like. According to the police report, Boatright and Henderson fit the profile of drug couriers: they were driving from Houston, “a known point for distribution of illegal narcotics,” to Linden, “a known place to receive illegal narcotics.” The report describes their children as possible decoys, meant to distract police as the couple breezed down the road, smoking marijuana. (None was found in the car, although Washington claimed to have smelled it.)
The county’s district attorney, a fifty-seven-year-old woman with feathered Charlie’s Angels hair named Lynda K. Russell, arrived an hour later. Russell, who moonlighted locally as a country singer, told Henderson and Boatright that they had two options. They could face felony charges for “money laundering” and “child endangerment,” in which case they would go to jail and their children would be handed over to foster care. Or they could sign over their cash to the city of Tenaha, and get back on the road. “No criminal charges shall be filed,” a waiver she drafted read, “and our children shall not be turned over to CPS,” or Child Protective Services.
“Where are we?” Boatright remembers thinking. “Is this some kind of foreign country, where they’re selling people’s kids off?” Holding her sixteen-month-old on her hip, she broke down in tears.
Later, she learned that cash-for-freedom deals had become a point of pride for Tenaha, and that versions of the tactic were used across the country. “Be safe and keep up the good work,” the city marshal wrote to Washington, following a raft of complaints from out-of-town drivers who claimed that they had been stopped in Tenaha and stripped of cash, valuables, and, in at least one case, an infant child, without clear evidence of contraband.
Sarah Stillman: The Use and Abuse of Civil Forfeiture : The New Yorker
They pulled into a mini-mart for snacks. When they returned to the highway ten minutes later, Boatright, a honey-blond “Texas redneck from Lubbock,” by her own reckoning, and Henderson, who is Latino, noticed something strange. The same police car that their eleven-year-old had admired in the mini-mart parking lot was trailing them. Near the city limits, a tall, bull-shouldered officer named Barry Washington pulled them over.
He asked if Henderson knew that he’d been driving in the left lane for more than half a mile without passing.
No, Henderson replied. He said he’d moved into the left lane so that the police car could make its way onto the highway.
Were there any drugs in the car? When Henderson and Boatright said no, the officer asked if he and his partner could search the car.
The officers found the couple’s cash and a marbled-glass pipe that Boatright said was a gift for her sister-in-law, and escorted them across town to the police station. In a corner there, two tables were heaped with jewelry, DVD players, cell phones, and the like. According to the police report, Boatright and Henderson fit the profile of drug couriers: they were driving from Houston, “a known point for distribution of illegal narcotics,” to Linden, “a known place to receive illegal narcotics.” The report describes their children as possible decoys, meant to distract police as the couple breezed down the road, smoking marijuana. (None was found in the car, although Washington claimed to have smelled it.)
The county’s district attorney, a fifty-seven-year-old woman with feathered Charlie’s Angels hair named Lynda K. Russell, arrived an hour later. Russell, who moonlighted locally as a country singer, told Henderson and Boatright that they had two options. They could face felony charges for “money laundering” and “child endangerment,” in which case they would go to jail and their children would be handed over to foster care. Or they could sign over their cash to the city of Tenaha, and get back on the road. “No criminal charges shall be filed,” a waiver she drafted read, “and our children shall not be turned over to CPS,” or Child Protective Services.
“Where are we?” Boatright remembers thinking. “Is this some kind of foreign country, where they’re selling people’s kids off?” Holding her sixteen-month-old on her hip, she broke down in tears.
Later, she learned that cash-for-freedom deals had become a point of pride for Tenaha, and that versions of the tactic were used across the country. “Be safe and keep up the good work,” the city marshal wrote to Washington, following a raft of complaints from out-of-town drivers who claimed that they had been stopped in Tenaha and stripped of cash, valuables, and, in at least one case, an infant child, without clear evidence of contraband.
Sarah Stillman: The Use and Abuse of Civil Forfeiture : The New Yorker
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